Ati Drivers....Lynch help?

[Hardegg]

I need help loading ATI Drivers on my system.
It won't take the one from ATI's site........unless I'm doing something wrong.
Which is very likley
I am running A Radeon 9700 Pro
and Red HAt 8.0

Anybody help me out?

Lynch I saw where you posted that you use ATI cards.
Any advice would be welcome

 

[lynch]

Yes I do,but I havent tried the 9700 Pro-not in my budget I run cards with the Rage128 Pro and Radeon drivers that come with the SuSE distros I use.Post a link to the ATI site you got the drivers from and I can at least take a look
I see from your other post that you got the GUI back up without having to take drastic measures so has the issue been solved to your satisfaction?Linux and that kind of gaming is not my forte:not a big gamer But I will try to help if I can.
lynch

 

[Hardegg]

Ok I am figuring this out a little at a time.
I have made several attempts to use Linux over the last couple of years but had little luck, mostly cause of lack of time.
This time I didn't even setup a dual boot system. So it's make it work or bust

I accidently found and configured the XF86Config file from command promt to reload my vesa card drivers to get GUI back.
I thought that was pretty good for a noob
Also I was able to fianlly load the driver from ATI about midnight lastnight.
It does launch the game now but it is still unplayable
So I don't know if the open GL is setup right yet and the sound was messed up but, but the sound works fine outside of game.
Thanks for the tip to post to ATI.....don't know why I didn't think of that.

 

[lynch]

Linux can be quite non-intuitive sometimes so I'd say what you've done so far is good for a newbie.
I meant post a link here so I can look at the ATI site without searching all over the place.Thier website can get you lost at times.
I can check a couple places where maybe someone has had some luck with this card in Linux.Will let you know.
lynch

 

[Hardegg]

Yea I see what you mean. I wandered around ATI's site for a bit and couldn't find a forum link.
I am going to try a couple of things like disable sound and see if that helps also I found some better installation directions on their site so I am going to try them now.
What I really would like to know is a test program to see if things are working right.
Also, how do I tell how much space is left on my hardrive?

I know i'm not low I just don't know how to find out

 

[lynch]

If you set up X in Red Hat try using Xconfigurator-it should ask you if you want to test the new settings.
In a terminal,type this:
df -h
And it will tell you what you have left on the hdd.
OK,I found them.Did you read the release notes?There seems to be a library that needs replacing for RH 8.I copied the relevant section:

Note for RedHat 8.0 users:
A common case for RedHat 8.0 installations is the presence of the
libGL component in a specific version. This file is provided by
the rpm package XFree86-Mesa-libGL-4.2.0-72 or similiar. This does
raise a conflict because the ATI Linux drivers do come with their
own version of this library which does come with extra support for
the pbuffer feature. This library is considered backward compatible
with the version which was supplied with the respective XFree86 version.

You can force RPM to install the driver package despite this already
present GL library by instructing rpm to use the replacement file:

rpm -i --force <ati_package_name>.rpm

If you dont want to perform it with a hard overriding of that rpm warning
but want to do a propper replacement of the files in terms of the RPM
concept then you have to use the rpm tool to remove the existing libGL
installation and then you have to provide the replacement libGL by
installating the ATI drivers. Use a command sequence like these:
(You should not have running any OpenGL program for doing this.)

rpm -e --nodeps XFree86-Mesa-libGL-4.2.0-72
rpm -Uhv <ati_package_name>.rpm

The "--nodeps" option is needed because e.g. some screen savers,
qt-3 and some parts of XFree86 might depend on the libGL presence.
With installing the new libgl from ATI package these dependencys
will get resolved again.

After the driver files are installed, run the fglrxconfig
program to configure your XFree86 installation. Respond to the questions
of the fglrxconfig program and save the settings to
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4.

.
HTH
lynch

 

[Hardegg]

Man I didn't expect you to spend much time looking this up for me but thanks.

I did see that and tried it already....but do I need to be in iny certain directory for it to work?
It doesn't say anything about that.

I ran that command line again just now and I got this message
"error: package XFree86-Mesa-libGL-4.2.0-72 is not installed
error: cannot get exclusive lock on /var/lib/rpm/Packages
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - Operation not permitted (1)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm"

Does that mean I succsefully did it before?

I also found where it might be the Wfree isn't compatable with the Radeon 9700 Pro until 4.3.0 is released....soon.
I dunno

I'm not really playing many games right now so I can wait I just like useing them as a benchmark.

Oh and thanks for info on hardrive space, That worked just fine.
Once again Lynch thanks for all your effort.

I am up until about 1 or 2 am each night trying to sort this out

 

[lynch]

I assume you tried the rpm -e XFree86-Mesa-libGL##.rpm.
The rpm command should work regardless of what directory your currently in-and being root too,which you are as you do get feedback from rpm saying it's not installed.What else did you try?
I dont mind spending a little time searching around for stuff if it's ultimately helpful I learn quite a bit of stuff doing that because in the course of looking around,I run up on info I wasnt aware of.
Good luck with your efforts.
lynch

 

[Hardegg]

Ok now I am maybe not typing in correct command. I only have a few minutes before going to work but here is what I can tell you right now.

I followed the ATI docmuntation that you found prior to yesterday I printed out 23 pages from their website.

I do have a question, This is the exact command I typed in:
rpm -e --nodeps XFree86-Mesa-libGL-4.2.0-72

Is that complete? I did'nt do anything with rpm at the end

That is what brought up the errors
however I was not in root though I think I was su

On my initial attempts to install driver I was in root

This is hard without watching someone do it first

P.S. don't assume anything about what I have tried
No I didn't try: rpm -e XFree86-Mesa-libGL##.rpm.

What belongs in the pound signs?
Unfortunatly being Friday I prolly won't have much time to get on today and try things.

 

[Hardegg]

Lynch on more thing I wanted to post before work.
When I said I didn't do anything wit rpm extension that excluded the driver install
When I did the driver install I then ran the fglrxconfig to seit it up.

I also got an error message stating that 3d open gl would not funtion for some reason I didn't write down. But that 2D would which I do notice a differance there in 2D.

I just don't have open GL functioning.
I will post a complete description of what I have done as soon as I get a chance but today looks to be at least a 16 hour day before I am done

 

[lynch]

Yeah,you need to put the rpm extension on that command:
rpm -e --nodeps XFree86-Mesa-libGL-4.2.0-72.rpm
That's probably all you needed.I hope.
The "##" in my example was me forgetting what the version number was on that file.Sorry.
3D is still in the development stages with XWindows and is considered experimental so you'll see some messages like that as you install Linux on different setups.
In SuSE whenever I configure X with the SaX2 utility,it will always warn me about that.
Oh,well.Hope you dont get too worn out working those long hours
lynch

 

[Hardegg]

Well cool for now untill I can figure out the open GL a little better

However.
What if anything do you know about this product that is supposed to replace XFree for 3D acceleration? http://www.xig.com/

It has a cost but the salesman says it works real good


However it still doesn't list Radeon 9700 as supported.

Maybe I should move on to getting this to network with a windows comp??

Yes work is very hectic right now I prolly could have picked a better time to install Linux

 

[lynch]

Thanks for the link.I have heard about X Accelerator but never felt the need to try it.I have heard that it is a good product,though.
lynch

 

[Hardegg]

Thanks for all the time.
I don't want to burn you out on trying to help me. I am going to try the Xaccelerator package.
But I am going to start a new thread.
Please feel free to post I just feel that I have dominated you with this.
I really do appreciate your efforts trying to help this newb

 

[lynch]

NP
I always figure it's me who draws out other peoples threads
lynch