How To: Install ATI Catalyst (fglrx) Drivers
Last Updated : January 30, 2010.
Note: This How To is valid up to Catalyst Driver version 10.1.
Note: With minor changes this How To may work for other Linux distributions like Mandriva, Suse, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Cent OS etc.
Following the suggestions in comments on my last post about ATI Catalyst (fglrx), I tried to reinstall ATI drivers version 9.8 and finally it worked. I thought of noting down the the process in few simple steps which anyone can follow and get the drivers working on Fedora 11 with latest kernel versions.
Step 1 : Update Kernel, Install kernel-devel
Huge thanks to Richard Lloyd and
This step is not necessary. You may like to stick to the kernel version you already have. In case you want the latest kernel, just use yum to get the latest kernel.
Note: Do not forget to update the kernel-devel package as well as its needed to compile the fglrx kernel module.
DONT UPDATE THE KERNEL. Instead stick to whatever kernel version you have. If you have 2.6.30.*, you are unlucky 
Get a kernel version 2.6.29.* and install the kernel-devel for the same.
With Catalyst Driver version 9.10 you can update kernel to latest version before installing the Drivers.
[root@fedora ~]$ yum update kernel [root@fedora ~]$ yum install kernel-devel
Step 2 : Download Drivers
Download the ATI Catalyst™ 9.8 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver from ATI/AMD website.
Step 3 : Install Drivers
Install the drivers that you have downloaded using the following command.
[root@fedora ~]$ bash ./ati-driver-installer-9-8-x86.x86_64.run
Step 4 : Check Installation Result
Check the /usr/share/ati/fglrx-install.log file for result of installation. If there are no errors, proceed to the next step.
Note: You may see lines like this at the end of file
You must change your working directory to /lib/modules/fglrx
and then call ./make_install.sh in order to install the built module.
- recreating module dependency list
- trying a sample load of the kernel modules
done.
You can ignore these lines happily if they don’t contain any error message. You don’t really need to execute the command mentioned in those lines.
Step 5 : Blacklist radeon and radeonhd kernel modules
Add these lines to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf.
blacklist radeon blacklist radeonhd
Step 6 : Generate initial Xorg configuration file
Note: This step is optional with Catalyst Driver version 9.10, but it wont harm even if you execute this.
You have to generate the initial xorg.conf file which will use fglrx as display device.
[root@fedora ~]$ aticonfig --initial
Step 7 : Modify xorg.conf
Open your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and add the following line to “Device” section (the one with fglrx as driver)
Option "SWCursor" "true"
Step 8 : Reboot
Reboot your machine. And you’ll have the latest ATI Catalyst drivers working on your Fedora 11 
Step 9 : Testing
You can test your newly installed drivers and get the performance benchmarks for your graphics card using the commands below.
[saini@fedora ~]$ glxgears [saini@fedora ~]$ fgl_glxgears
My graphics card is ATI Radeon HD 3200 (256MB, Onboard) and I get 1500FPS with glxgears and 300FPS with fgl_glxgears.
In case you messup things somewhere, you can uninstall the fglrx drivers using the following command
[root@fedora ~]$ /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh
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I have followed the suggested procedures and apparently the ATI driver, fglrx, is installed and working. However, I can not get AIGLX rendering to work and thus Desktop effects and Compiz are not available to me. The output of glxgears and fgl_glxgears is essentially identical. Both AIGLX and Xinerama are turned on in “xorg.conf” and the “Xorg.log” shows them initializing correctly. Xinerama works just fine (as does Cairo-dock) but no acceleration! Any suggestions or donations of clue greatly appreciated.
The system is self assembled and consists a Gigabyte MB, an Intel 9550 CPU with 6GB of RAM and an ATI HD4770 video card. Output of standard tests shown below:
[pml@grizzly2 ~]$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon HD 4770
OpenGL version string: 2.1.9026
[pml@grizzly2 ~]$ fgl_glxgears
Using GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
278 frames in 5.0 seconds = 55.600 FPS
297 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.400 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.000 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 60.000 FPS
299 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.800 FPS
^C
[pml@grizzly2 ~]$ glxgears
Running synchronized to the vertical refresh. The framerate should be
approximately 1/3984819 the monitor refresh rate.
299 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.722 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.948 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.940 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.952 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.879 FPS
^C
[pml@grizzly2 ~]$ ./compiz-check
Gathering information about your system…
Distribution: Fedora release 11 (Leonidas)
Desktop environment: GNOME
Graphics chip: ATI Technologies Inc Device 94b3
Driver in use: fglrx
Rendering method: None
Checking if it’s possible to run Compiz on your system… [SKIP]
Checking for hardware/setup problems… [SKIP]
At least one check had to be skipped:
Error: No rendering method in use (AIGLX, Xgl or Nvidia)
[pml@grizzly2 ~]$ uname -a
Linux grizzly2.bears 2.6.30.10-105.fc11.x86_64 #1 SMP Thu Dec 24 16:41:51 UTC 2009 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
I came here looking for some tweaks to see if I could improve on the rendering speed of my hd4670 but looking at the numbers posted here it seems I am doing not so bad after all:
jeroen@storm:~$ fgl_glxgears
Using GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
12108 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2421.600 FPS
14030 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2806.000 FPS
14071 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2814.200 FPS
14035 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2807.000 FPS
^C
jeroen@storm:~$ glxgears
48979 frames in 5.0 seconds = 9795.751 FPS
48949 frames in 5.0 seconds = 9789.743 FPS
48947 frames in 5.0 seconds = 9789.309 FPS
48956 frames in 5.0 seconds = 9791.084 FPS
^C
jeroen@storm:~$ uname -a
Linux storm 2.6.30 #1 SMP Tue Dec 29 04:34:12 CET 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Catalyst 9.12, used aticonfig –initial to produce xorg.conf
I think I almost have this working… The only error I see in my Xorg.0.log is
”
dlopen /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fglrx_drv.so: undefined symbol: UpdateSpriteForScreen
(EE) Failed to load /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fglrx_drv.so
(II) UnloadModule “fglrx”
(EE) Failed to load module “fglrx” (loader failed, 7)
(EE) No drivers available
Fatal server error:
no screens found
I’m running Fedora Core 12…
Did you find a solution?
I trawled the net with the same problem, and got this far.
I’m also getting the the UpdateSpriteForScreen error on fc12 with an ATI 5850 using ati drivers in ati-driver-installer-10-1-x86.x86_64.run
I’m starting to lose hair over this!
Anyone any ideas?
I gave up on F12, installed F11 instead.
Thanks – I can’t go back to fc11 for various reasons, so I gave up too and put it in a windows machine. I’ll keep an eye open and wait until someone gets round to fixing it.
The machine will be a production webserver, and cruncher…
Have you tried the experimental ATI drivers?
As an FYI – If the dkms package is installed, the Catalyst installation seems to use it and the install log file is cleaner.
Has anyone successfully installed 10.1 on Fedora 12 x86_64? The ATI/AMD site says “you must have 32-bit packages installed” but they’re not specific about what packages or why.
For me, with the latest package kernel, 10.1 compiles the new modules and installs them without error. Then, after rebooting (and seeing the graphical Fedora logo white thing), the screen goes black and a cursor jumps around at the top left, then stops, forcing me to reboot.
Here is the fglrx output from /var/log/messages:
Feb 6 23:27:32 laptop kernel: fglrx: module license ‘Proprietary. (C) 2002 – ATI Technologies, Starnberg, GERMANY’ taints kernel.
Feb 6 23:27:32 laptop kernel: [fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 3551 MBytes.
Feb 6 23:27:32 laptop kernel: [fglrx] vendor: 1002 device: 9612 count: 1
Feb 6 23:27:32 laptop kernel: [fglrx] ioport: bar 1, base 0×9000, size: 0×100
Feb 6 23:27:32 laptop kernel: [fglrx] Kernel PAT support is enabled
Feb 6 23:27:32 laptop kernel: [fglrx] module loaded – fglrx 8.69.4 [Dec 11 2009] with 1 minors
Feb 6 23:27:32 laptop kernel: [fglrx] module unloaded – fglrx 8.69.4 [Dec 11 2009]
So, back to my original question. Has anyone installed ATI drivers on a 64-bit platform (specifically 10.1 on Fedora 12)? If so, how?
Hi cyrus7580,
I have installed ATI Catalyst 10.1 driver on Fedora 12 x86_64 with the very same result as you described.
BR,
Mx
Ive got F12 atm, and Im having the same problem as taf2.
Gonna keep looking but Im going to assume its an incompatability with the gcc program. i noticed a lot of warnings in my log.
This is kind of bugging me bc it seems like I (and Mx) are very close to having this working; the thing compiles and installs with almost no error. It’s only at the login screen after reboot that we’re hitting a snag and the screen goes black.
Let me ask this: When Fedora is booting and you have the blue screen with the white area that fills up with the logo… is that X running there or is that a special separate graphical rendering or some sort? When exactly does X initialize in the bootup process? I’m trying to understand whether, for us, X is starting and then dying or just not starting at all. And if it’s dying, why is it dying? Does it have something to do with the login prompt?
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