Friday, September 16, 2005

ATI fglrx, Xorg and DRI

Today I have succesfully installed the ATI drivers on my Vaio.

You can find the ATI driver at this link:
https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=27 and download the rpm version.

This is the main guide I have followed for the installation process:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?threadid=361450
but with some adjustment.

First of all you must have installed the kernel source ( keep in mind that must be the same version that you are running )

I used urpmi to make the installation, in this way I can keep track of the rpm package in db.

Now make a copy of /usr/X11R6/lib/FGL.renamed.libGL.so.1.2 because this file create a conflict with the ATI's rpm and it'll be overwrite. Now you can start with the installation process:

# urpmi --allow-force fglrx_6_8_0-8.16.20-1.i386.rpm
say "y" for all the questions.

If all has gone well, run
# fglrxconfig
You can keep all the default settings, choose only you language ( keyboard layout ) and the resolution about 24 bit depth selecting ( 8632 ).

Then edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, created by ATI and modify the Subsection "Display" adding the mode: 1920x1200. The Subsection should result in this way :

Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1200" "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600"
ViewPort 0 0 # initial origin if mode is smaller than desktop
# Virtual 1280 1024
EndSubsection

In Section "Files", comment all the istances of FontPath and RgbPath then add this line:

FontPath "unix/:-1"

Note: This line indicates to xorg to use the xfs ( X font server )

save and restart the server.

This is the glxgears output:
9648 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1929.600 FPS
11474 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2294.800 FPS
12028 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2405.600 FPS
12018 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2403.600 FPS
12399 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2479.800 FPS
12614 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2522.800 FPS
12169 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2433.800 FPS
13676 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2735.200 FPS
14351 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2870.200 FPS

Done !

*** Keep in mind that there is no guarantee that this process works on your machine and it's at your own risk. ***

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Adding your service to the system:

put your init script in /etc/init.d with a top description like this:
# chkconfig: 2345 99 5
# description:

where the 2345 are the level in which you want the service on, 99 is the start order and 5 the stop.

chkconfig --add myservice

Then you'll be ablo to manage you service from the graphical system manager.