Installing ATI drivers correctly on Debian Linux

[MadMikeHoare]

There might be a few more linux freaks than me that use Debian as their home system and maybe even for running WINE to start EntropiyUniverse.

Here I will describe how to "correctly" install ATI drivers on a Debian.

su
cd /usr/src/
apt-get install module-assistant debhelper debconf gcc libstdc++6 libstdc++5
cd /usr/src

In case you have a default kernel you have to install the kernel headerfiles. In kernel 2.6.18 this would be:

apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.18-3-686

Because ATI drivers get updated frequently and there might be several versions of them, you should decide by your own which one you use.

wget http://www.xxx.xx/ati-driver-installer-8.XX.X.run
chmod a+x ati-driver-installer-8.XX.X.run
./ati-driver-installer-8.32.5-x86.x86_64.run --listpkg

Because I already have Etch, I choose:

./ati-driver-installer-8.32.5-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Debian/etch

Those that still run Sarge use:

./ati-driver-installer-8.32.5-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Debian/sarge

Now we are ready and can install the choosen files. A simple "ls" tell us the filenames.

dpkg --install fglrx-control_8.XX.X-1_i386.deb
dpkg --install fglrx-driver_8.XX.X-1_i386.deb
dpkg --install fglrx-driver-dev_8.XX.X-1_i386.deb
dpkg --install fglrx-kernel-src_8.XX.X-1_i386.deb
m-a update && m-a prepare
m-a a-i fglrx

At the end we replace the default Vesa with the newer fglrx driver by adding them in the xorg.conf

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "Standardgrafikkarte"
        Driver          "fglrx"
EndSection

Usually we would have to restart everything seperatly, but I choose to restart the whole system.

shutdown -r now

After the reboot you can test if everything went fine.

You can test by KinfoCenter in the category System by clicking Opengl

or you can do:

su
fglrxinfo

By the previous command you should get something like this:

OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON 9600 XT Generic
OpenGL version string: 2.0.6065 (8.29.6)

That's it.

 

[sahel]

Maybe it's time for a linux subforum, i have the feeling we are gonna have a whole arsenal of linux-tutorials soon .

Thanks again

 

[MadMikeHoare]

Maybe it's time for a linux subforum, i have the feeling we are gonna have a whole arsenal of linux-tutorials soon .

Thanks again

Maybe you are right. But from my point of few many many people do not play or join EU because MA doesn't offer ANY help for Linux users. It's like they ignore them totally. Maybe my tutorials help a little...I'm so bored lol

 

[Angel of Death]

Does this apply to the restricted use drivers? It was a lot trickier to get XGL running than what you've posted...

I'll have to give it another shot following this and see what happens. +rep.

 

[MadMikeHoare]

Does this apply to the restricted use drivers? It was a lot trickier to get XGL running than what you've posted...

I'll have to give it another shot following this and see what happens. +rep.

You mentioned XGL. XGL is a implementation of the X-Windows-System, which gets a boost with OpenGL hardware side. XGL is, from my knowledge in a very early phase of development and I do not play with it to be honest. So what I posted is the installation of OpenGL ATI drivers without any support for XGL so far. But this is an interesting point, XGL is supposed to give better transparancy, shades etc. and is definately worth to be tested here sooner or later

 

[Hrafninn]

So, WINE works for EU now? From what I heard people never got the fonts to show.

 

[Angel of Death]

What Debian install are you using? I used Ubuntu, I assume you're on Gentoo?

 

[MadMikeHoare]

What Debian install are you using? I used Ubuntu, I assume you're on Gentoo?

I use Etch and Sarge, depending on what I wanna do. I also run gentoo which is a great server system due to it high performance features in 64bit.

Playing EU due high peak times in WINE is not fun though, so I always have a WinXP (sigh) as well, sometime you just cant without...

 

[BorgCymru]

You might want to look at this, it installs ATI drivers as well as NVidia

http://www.albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html