[TriLUG] ATI Rage XL onboard graphics in Debian Sarge

[Brian Henning]

Hi Y'all,
   Anyone have some experience with ATI's Rage XL chipset in an onboard 
configuration in Debian?  I tried the fglrx package from ATI, but all 
they provide is an RPM, and not much in the way of how to actually 
install the driver and cause it to be used.  I'm assuming that I'll need 
to twiddle my XF86Config file, but so far I'm not coming up with much in 
the way of instructions on exactly what I need to do.

What I've done so far is dpkg -i --force-overwrite fglrx-[version].deb, 
which was created by alien-ing fglrx_[version].rpm.  The 
--force-overwrite was necessary because it overwrites a file from 
xlibmesa-gl, or something like that.

I had to tweak my XF86Config on my system at home to use the nvidia 
drivers for its GeForce card, so I guess I need to do the same for the 
ATI chipset, but I have no idea what settings need to be changed.

My goal is to be able to run GL apps such as Legends.  Right now, the 
first line of output from the Legends client is:
Xlib:  extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":0.0".
It launches, but the framerate is crap.  (The framerate is also crap on 
any OpenGL screensavers)

What's DRI and how do I get it?  Errr...  aptitude says xlibmesa-dri is 
installed, so what am I doing wrong?  Could it be an unsupported chipset 
issue?

TIA for the advice,
~Brian