# How do I know what the name of my driver is?

## Bob Leny

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum to place this topic, however it is hardware related.

I'm following this guide in the Gentoo docs:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/dri-howto.xml

I am at step 3. Configure direct rendering.

My problem is under Code Listing, where it says in red "(Replace radeon with the name of your driver.)"

How do I know what the name of my driver is? It's not like it said in the kernel options...

Thanks for your help, and sorry if this is the wrong forum.

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## Hu

The name of your driver will depend on your graphics hardware vendor.  What hardware are you using this on?

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## Bob Leny

VendorName"ATI Technologies Inc"

BoardName "R700 [radeon HD4870 X2]"

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## Shining Arcanine

The example in step 3 should be correct for your system.

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## maltinator

For most people there are only 4 options

radeon: OpenSource Driver for ATI Cards (x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati)

fglrx: ClosedSource Driver for newer (HD....) ATI Cards (x11-drivers/ati-drivers)

nouveau: New OS Driver vor Nvidia Cards (x11-drivers/xf86-video-nouveau)

nvidia: Closed Source Driver for Nvidia Cards (x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers)

Best way to get them installed is to add a line like 

```
VIDEO_CARDS="radeon fglrx"
```

 in your /etc/make.conf

The radeon Driver ist OpenSource, but is not as powerfull as the fglrx driver

malte

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## Bob Leny

OK, then should I replace the word "radeon" with "x11-drivers/ati-drivers"?

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## Shining Arcanine

 *Bob Leny wrote:*   

> OK, then should I replace the word "radeon" with "x11-drivers/ati-drivers"?

 

No. It is correct as it is. Portage should install x11-drivers/ati-drivers because radeon is in that variable.Last edited by Shining Arcanine on Tue Sep 07, 2010 4:18 pm; edited 1 time in total

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## Bob Leny

Or maybe I'm just stupid and "radeon" is the name of my driver?

And what about this next part, Changes to modules.autoload.d?

Should I just type "radeon" for that or should I type something else?

I really don't like this guide....

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## maltinator

No, sorry if you got me wrong there. x11-drivers/ati-drivers (or what ever) is the name of the package you have to install in order to install the driver. the part on the left (bold) is what you put in in your xorg.conf. 

So for you it would be

```
Section "Device"

  Driver "fglrx"

EndSection

```

 for the closed source Driver

or

```
Section "Device"

  Driver "radeon"

EndSection

```

 for the Open Source one

malte

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## Bob Leny

Is there a way to tell if those drivers have been installed?

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## Shining Arcanine

 *Bob Leny wrote:*   

> Or maybe I'm just stupid and "radeon" is the name of my driver?
> 
> And what about this next part, Changes to modules.autoload.d?
> 
> Should I just type "radeon" for that or should I type something else?
> ...

 

I use Nvidia graphics cards and I ignored that step. You might be able to ignore that step too. If the X server fails, then you probably will need to go back and do it. As for the name of the kernel module, I am not a Radeon user, so I do not know.

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## Shining Arcanine

 *Bob Leny wrote:*   

> Is there a way to tell if those drivers have been installed?

 

Unless the driver is included with the kernel, portage will install it automatically when it installs xorg-server. Specifying the driver's name makes xorg-server dependent on it. If it is included with the kernel, then you need to make certain that you compiled it either into the kernel or a as a kernel module.

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## maltinator

It seems you're new to this?! Did you follog the Xorg Configuration Guide? If so, just put radeon or fglrx in your xorg.conf (whatever you decided to set "VIDEO_CARDS" to). If you did not do it, I recommend just doing it  :Smile: 

malte

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## Bob Leny

I complied it as a module. The option I chose simply said ATI Radeon.

Yes, I did follow the Xorg Configuration Guide and I got the xserver up and running without to much of a problem. However, I have two very powerful cards, and I would prefer to put my graphics load on them rather than my CPU. I was told to do that, I would need to follow the Hardware Acceleration guide, which I am now doing.

I got to step four, with the exception of step thee. I already had my xorg.conf set up correctly apparently. As well as my make.conf

I didn't do the Changes to modules.autoload.d thing, because I don't know what to do there.

At step four I typed:

```

# startx

# glxinfo | grep rendering

Error: unable to open display

```

When I got the error, I assumed it was something I didn't do in step three. I still haven't done the Changes to modules.autoload.d thing, so maybe it is something I didn't do in step three. xrandr gives me a similar error.

By the sounds of it I need to add the module to the modules.autoload.d file to load the module. Once the module is loaded, maybe it will work?

Is there a way to manually load the module without knowing the name of the module?

If I need to know the name of the module to load it, how do I find the name?

Do I even need to deal with the modules.autoload.d thing?

Is there some other reason why it can't open the display?

I'm still lost...

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## jburns

Look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log

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## cach0rr0

 *Bob Leny wrote:*   

> 
> 
> At step four I typed:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

X has to be running already for this to work

and if you're doing it from a terminal in running X, you must do it as the user you use to launch X 

I only skimmed the thread, but just to point out:

ati-drivers == FGLRX

radeon == open-source driver 

for the former:

VIDEO_CARDS="fglrx"

for the latter

VIDEO_CARDS="radeon"

If you do opt for fglrx, see this guide: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Fglrx

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## maltinator

what happend after you entered startx? did X start? 

where did you enter glxinfo?

In many cases (like mine) you don't have to put anything in the modules.autoload.d

malte

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## Bob Leny

Sorry about the delay in responses to you replies. I had a lot of things to catch up on.

I now understand why those commands didn't work. I got them to work now, and it does say I have direct rendering. I also ran the glxgears, and it says I am running at ~ 2,640 FPS. Is that good? I never monitored my FPS before...

Also every time I type in glxinfo or glxgears, it says:

```
IRQ's not enabled, falling back to bussy waits: 2 0
```

Is this something I should be concerned with?

P.S.

Since my problem with the keyboard and mouse was do to the fact that hal was not set as a useflag when I installed the x server, I removed the xorg.conf because the guide said not to use it if you don't have to.

I also removed all of the hal policies as well. After a restart of hald and and reboot, it works fine.

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## maltinator

glxgears is not much of a benchmark, but 2640FPS should be ok for you. Best way is to realy use a 3d Application etracer, nexius ... what ever and see if you get reasonable fps.

Don't worry abour the IRQ thing. Although I don't know anything about this particular case, I know what IRQ and busy waits in general are. So what happens is you might miss some "events" and the reaction to certain events may be delayed. What events? I don't know. And of corse you waste time on checking if an "event" occured. I guess this is just the state of the driver ...

If you are not satisfiede by the drivers performance, you might want to try ati-drivers 

(after installing them)

```
aticonfig --initial

eselect opengl set ati
```

will do the trick

to change back to the open source driver delete your xorg.conf ofr replace the "fglrx" with "radeon" and make a

```
eselect opengl set xorg-x11
```

malte

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## andyandrews35

I just got through hell re-installing Gentoo on my old laptop. What this guy needs to get up and running is a driver X can find.  My old crummy laptop with onboard graphics can work with vesa driver.

So what you want to do is emerge the vesa driver to make sure X has something it can load.  Set your make.conf video card to whatever type it is, as already discussed.

Throw in the framebuffer driver for good measure:

emerge x11-drivers/xf86-video-vesa xf86-video-fbdev

Since you already have an xorg.conf, substitute in "vesa" for the driver for your Device section dealing with the display adaptor.

This should get you up and running, then you can get into more perfectionist tuning at your leisure.

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## Bob Leny

Thank you all so much for your help! I now have a working Gentoo install running KDE4.5! I am so happy!  :Smile: 

One of the many reasons I wanted to try Gentoo was because of the support that was offered on your forums. You do not disappoint.

Thanks again, this wasn't a fun one...

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## cach0rr0

the metrics glxgears uses arent really accurate, it may say youre getting a few thousand FPS, but real life scenario it's nothing close

however, if your glxgears is saying you're getting 20FPS, and your glxinfo shows Software Rasterizer, things arent right. 

Having said that, since you're running without xorg.conf at the moment, i can only assume you're on xorg 1.7 - which is fine

i mention that and the version, because in xorg 1.8 hal is much less a requirement. So keep that in mind when you upgrade, as most of what hal does in 1.7 has, in 1.8, been shifted to udev (or rather, udev handles what hal does, deprecating it, and while you can still use hal with 1.8, unlike 1.7 the hal requirements have been more or less removed). 

That's a simplified and probably not completely accurate description, but it's along those lines. Google around@ "HAL deprecated"

at any rate, thanks for the positive feedback on the forum and community support experience! Love the community myself, for my money best one around. 

(it's free, but still...you get what I mean)

NB: my post-pub version of this response was much longer, and less lucid, had to ninja edit it  :Laughing: 

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