# [SOLVED] ATI Radeon 5870 proprietary drivers

## LightGen

Hey,

Just installed Gentoo again (coming back to it from Arch Linux  :Razz: ), and (as always) I am having trouble with the ATI proprietary drivers.

First I installed them using portage, but they kept failing.

So I downloaded the drivers from the ATI website, and its failing to build. (Description below)

I run:

sh ./ati-driver-*

Installer starts up, everything is fine, continue installation, goes on happily, I choose the Automatic (or whatever) option and it starts the installation, it goes fine upto 81%, and then it starts to build the kernel modules, and fails!

HELP APPRECIATED!

fglrx log (chopped up a little):

```
[Message] Kernel Module: Trying to install a precompiled kernel module.

[Message] Kernel Module: Precompiled kernel module version mismatched.

[Message] Kernel Module: Found kernel module build enviornment, generating kernel module now.

AMD kernel module generator version 2.1

doing Makefile based build for kernel 2.6.x and higher

rm -rf *.c *.h *.o *.ko *.GCC* .??* *.symvers

make -C /lib/modules/2.6.34-gentoo-r1/build SUBDIRS=/lib64/modules/fglrx/build_mod/2.6.x modules

make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-2.6.34-gentoo-r1'

    ..somecrud (CC)..

    /lib64/modules/fglrx/build_mod/2.6.x/kcl_wait.c: In function 'KCL_WAIT_Add':

    /SAME

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## VoidMage

In this case, using upstream installer is a very good way to break your system.

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## LightGen

so what do you suggest? aside from the os drivers

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## Veldrin

Why are you using the manual installer, and not emerge -a ati-drivers?

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## snilsson

 *LightGen wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I run:
> 
> sh ./ati-driver-*
> ...

 

Hopefully that installer failed before wrecking things, I would try to remove and cleanup any files it created. 

Afterwards emerge the ati-drivers and use aticonfig --initial to create a xorg.conf

Have a look at the Wiki as well http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Fglrx

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## LightGen

 *snilsson wrote:*   

>  *LightGen wrote:*   
> 
> I run:
> 
> sh ./ati-driver-*
> ...

 

If you read the first post, you would see I had already tried that; however, I needed to re-emerge the whole xorg-server package with the dri use flag  :Razz: , the docs left that out.

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## snilsson

 *LightGen wrote:*   

> 
> 
> If you read the first post, you would see I had already tried that; however, I needed to re-emerge the whole xorg-server package with the dri use flag , the docs left that out.

 

Well then you better state what your problem with the initial setup was, because the ati-installer is not a good alternative. But hopefully the dri flag will help.

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## i92guboj

It's a good thing and not a bad one that the installed didn't work. 

When you use it some libs will remain hanging around, then at some point you will be asking yourself why things like DRI never work even when everything seems to be in place, and you'll waste a lot of time debugging the problem.

Anyway, an external package is not going to solve the problem if the rest of required packages are built without the requisites to get DRI working. If you have a problem just ask and we will try to provide the best solution, as far as our knowledge can help.

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## i92guboj

 *LightGen wrote:*   

> If you read the first post, you would see I had already tried that; however, I needed to re-emerge the whole xorg-server package with the dri use flag , the docs left that out.

 

We all know how "up to date" and "reliable" wikis are. Besides that, the wiki is not considered officially supported by the Gentoo project. Anyway, the xorg-server doesn't even have a "dri" USE flag any longer.

Regarding the fglrx driver, everyone knows they always lack behind in kernel versions and Xorg versions. Portage can control the X version with a simple dependency check. But it can't predict the kernel you will be running. Make sure your kernel version is compatible with the ati-drivers package you are installing, if you get compilation errors about odd declarations in your kernel sources, then most likely you are using a kernel version that's incompatible with fglrx.

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## snilsson

 *i92guboj wrote:*   

> 
> 
> We all know how "up to date" and "reliable" wikis are. Besides that, the wiki is not considered officially supported by the Gentoo project. Anyway, the xorg-server doesn't even have a "dri" USE flag any longer.
> 
> 

 

Well the Wiki has decent information for fglrx and fills some gaps in the official docs. The dri use flag is not mentioned in the Wiki anyway, so don't know where that information was found.

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## i92guboj

 *snilsson wrote:*   

>  *i92guboj wrote:*   
> 
> We all know how "up to date" and "reliable" wikis are. Besides that, the wiki is not considered officially supported by the Gentoo project. Anyway, the xorg-server doesn't even have a "dri" USE flag any longer.
> 
>  
> ...

 

Wikis always have decent and useful information. I just mean that you can't trust them to the letter. But, as you say, the dri flag is not relevant so that's why it's not in the wiki. The OP must have read that elsewhere around the forums or while at IRC. 

As I said, as per the error he pasted, the kernel and fglrx versions that he is matching are just incompatible at source (and probably binary) level.

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## LightGen

 *i92guboj wrote:*   

>  *snilsson wrote:*    *i92guboj wrote:*   
> 
> We all know how "up to date" and "reliable" wikis are. Besides that, the wiki is not considered officially supported by the Gentoo project. Anyway, the xorg-server doesn't even have a "dri" USE flag any longer.
> 
>  
> ...

 

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Xorg

"It's also a good idea to enable the dri USE flag ..."

Anyway, the kernel version is fine, fglrx supports 2.6 kernel

But the DRI use flag is what saved me

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## i92guboj

fglrx supports 2.6 kernel is too much of an asseveration.

2.6 kernels are a very wide family. I can tell you first hand that fglrx almost always lacks a couple of versions behind the stable kernel and/or Xorg-server. It wouldn't surprise me if fglrx didn't work with 2.6.34.x. I can't confirm it though. There's a reason I switched to radeon time ago, and it involves not caring about when AMD decides to support current kernels, which also involves not having to look for that kind of info on the net myself ever again.

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## LightGen

 *i92guboj wrote:*   

> fglrx supports 2.6 kernel is too much of an asseveration.
> 
> 2.6 kernels are a very wide family. I can tell you first hand that fglrx almost always lacks a couple of versions behind the stable kernel and/or Xorg-server. It wouldn't surprise me if fglrx didn't work with 2.6.34.x. I can't confirm it though. There's a reason I switched to radeon time ago, and it involves not caring about when AMD decides to support current kernels, which also involves not having to look for that kind of info on the net myself ever again.

 

Radeon[HD] OS drivers do not utilize the newer graphics card very well, so the proprietary drivers are good enough.

By the way, the fglrx drivers work with the 2.6.34 kernel + xorg 1.7.6 (thats what I have and its performing flawlessly  :Smile: )

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## psutokth

Good to hear you got it working despite the not-very-helpful nature of many of the posts in this thread. I've been running Gentoo for more than 5 years and happily haven't needed to visit the forums in quite awhile, but the tone and content of these posts, just beating up the original poster for trying something that won't work, is not what I was used to seeing during my installs. Welcome back to Gentoo!

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