Gentoo Linux ATI FAQ

1. Hardware Support

Many AMD/ATI boards (but not all) are supported by xorg-x11, at least for the 2D accelerated features. The 3D support is provided either by xorg-x11, or by AMD's closed source drivers. AMD's closed source driver only supports R600 and newer GPUs. Older GPUs will use the mature open source xorg-x11 driver.

GPU	Common Name	Support
Rage128	Rage128	xorg
R100	Radeon7xxx, Radeon64	xorg
R200, R250, R280	Radeon8500, Radeon9000, Radeon9200	xorg
R300, R400	Radeon 9500 - X850	xorg
R500	Radeon X1300 - X1950	xorg
R600	RadeonHD 2000 series	AMD DRI, xorg
RV670	RadeonHD 3000 series	AMD DRI, xorg
RV770 (R700)	RadeonHD 4000 series	AMD DRI, xorg
R800	RadeonHD 5000 series	AMD DRI, xorg
R900	RadeonHD 6000 series	AMD DRI, xorg

Note: The Radeon Feature Matrix at x.org lists the open source driver support level for each part of the graphics card hardware.

I have an All-In-Wonder/Vivo board. Are the multimedia features supported?

You don't need to use anything special for the board's multimedia features; x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati will work just fine.

I'm not using an x86-based architecture. What are my options?

X11 support on the PPC or Alpha platforms is quite similar to x86 X11 support. However, AMD/ATI's closed source Catalyst drivers are not supported on the PPC or Alpha, so you will have to use the open source drivers. The Catalyst drivers are only available for x86 and AMD64. The open source xorg-x11 drivers should work well on all architectures.

Important: To enable agpgart support for certain old AMD64 chipsets, you have to disable support for the K8 IOMMU.

I have a laptop. Is my ATI Mobility model supported?

It should be, but you may have a configuration issue due to the OEM PCI id that such chips may have. In such cases, you may have to write the configuration file yourself.

2. Installation

Packages

There are two ways of getting drivers for your AMD/ATI card:

The xorg-x11 ebuild provides the X11 implementation
The ati-drivers ebuild provides the AMD closed source X drivers and kernel modules

If you want to use AMD/ATI's internal agpgart support instead of the Linux kernel one, the agpgart driver and the chip set specific driver (in your kernel configuration) must be built as modules or not at all.

Note: Please read the Hardware Acceleration Guide for more information on installing drivers for your AMD/ATI graphics card.

Configuration

You may not need to manually create xorg.conf or modify it. Try running without it first. You can also use the Xorg auto configuration option:

Code Listing 2.1: Autoconfiguring X

# X -configure

For more information on how to get a basic xorg.conf configuration file, please refer to the Gentoo X Server HowTo.

Note: PPC, AMD64, and x86 users can use the xac stand-alone X configuration tool by emerging x11-misc/xac, but isn't required.

Note: You can use aticonfig if you have installed the ati-drivers package.

Important: If you're using ati-drivers, then you'll need to disable radeonfb (and probably any other framebuffer drivers) in your kernel config, as it conflicts with the built-in framebuffer in ati-drivers.

Switching to OpenGL

Once X is installed, configured, and running, it can use the AMD/ATI OpenGL libraries:

Code Listing 2.2: Running eselect

# eselect opengl set ati

3. More Resources

Please read the Hardware Acceleration Guide for more information on configuring your AMD/ATI graphics card.

More information on Gentoo Linux and the AMD/ATI Radeon binary drivers can be found on the Wedge Unofficial Gentoo ATI Radeon FAQ, and on the Unofficial AMD Linux Driver Wiki.

The contents of this document, unless otherwise expressly stated, are licensed under the CC-BY-SA-2.5 license. The Gentoo Name and Logo Usage Guidelines apply.

Page updated March 1, 2011

Summary: This FAQ should help users avoid some common installation and configuration issues related to DRI and X11 for AMD/ATI boards.

Luca Barbato
Author

Jorge Paulo
Editor

Tiemo Kieft
Editor

Joshua Saddler
Editor

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