HOW-TO: ATI fglrx driver 8.16.20

[mlomker]

The fglrx driver supports Radeon 8500+ and the X-series cards. Note that the 9100 IGP cards and the Mobility 9000 M7 LW (laptop chipset) are not supported for 3D.

When running the dpkg-reconfigure commands you can accept the defaults whenever you aren't sure.

Remove the 8.16.20 driver if it is already installed (not working)

sudo apt-get remove xorg-driver-fglrx
sudo apt-get remove linux-restricted-modules-$(uname -r)
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg #Select the ATI driver

Reboot--necessary to get the restricted modules out of memory.


(Re)Installing the driver

All Platforms:

sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx
sudo apt-get install linux-restricted-modules-$(uname -r) #Okay if it is already installed
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg #Select the fglrx driver

64-bit users:

You have to downgrade to an older version of libdri.a due to an incompatilbity with the ATI drivers. Download it here.

Change to download directory:

gunzip libdri.a.gz
sudo cp /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libdri.a libdri.a.old
sudo cp libdri.a /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/

If you wish to revert to any non-fglrx driver you will need to copy the libdri.a.old file back over the fglrx version.

Reboot.


Confirm that it works

mlomker@mlomkernote:/$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: MOBILITY RADEON 9700 Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.3.5272 (X4.3.0-8.16.20)

Troubleshooting

Resolution Problem:
The driver is installed but you are at 1024x768. The installer may have defaulted to that setting--I know that it didn't prompt me during my install. Either manually edit the xorg.conf file (if you know how) using nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf or run sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg.

If you have updated the xorg.conf but your widescreen display is still stuck at 1024x768 then it is probably the bug in the 8.16.20 driver that was fixed in 8.18.6. That driver is harder to install but I have a how-to.

General Troubleshooting:
You can look through the /var/log/Xorg.0.log and kern.log file for troubleshooting most problems.

xf86_EINVAL and MTRR errors


64-bit users:

You may get this error message when you go to restart:

Duplicate symbol rol_long in /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/fglrx_drv.o
Also defined in /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/linux/libint10.a

You can fix this by editing your xorg.conf file and commenting out the libint10.a line:

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Module"
#       Load    "int10"
EndSection

Ctrl-W, Y, Enter to save.