[TriLUG] ATI Rage XL onboard graphics in Debian Sarge

[John F. Davis]

On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 02:08:36PM -0400, Brian Henning wrote:
> 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.

I have used the Rage cards with the opensource driver.  I only use
the fgrlx driver for the Radeon cards.  For the radeon cards, I suggest
you build the module from source.  There is a script to help you.  install.sh
or something like that.  It calls make for you.

> 
> 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 would just convert the RPM to a deb to extract the source files.  I
never can remember how to extract files from RPMS with cpio.

> 
> 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.

The settings are pretty simple for the Radeon Card.  Just specify 
the fgrlx device.

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Generic Video Card"
    Driver      "fgrlx"
EndSection



> 
> 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)

There is a readme which tells you which configuration options are required
by your kernel.  From memory you only need AGP.  I think the driver
implements its own DRI api.  I am certain that you need to Make sure you don't 
have framebuffer enabled in your console.

> 
> 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?

Direct Rendering Interface - ?.  Its enabling X to talk to the hardware.  Since
the hardware is in kernel space, you need a driver to provide the API.

If I had access to either of my two boxes which are currently installed with 
the driver I could give you more info. If you still have problems, ping me
off list and I will give you more info this evening. 

If you are impatient, check out #ati on irc.freenode.net.