Which graphics driver ?

[A.R.]

Hello everybody,

I'm trying to find out which driver I should install on my new laptop in order to get the best results in Celestia.

I'm running Linux (Kubuntu) and the onboard graphics card is an ATI Radeon Xpress 1100. Unfortunately, ATI's web site is not very helpful, as this card is not listed in the driver download page.

Does anyone have any experience with the Xpress 1100, or maybe a similar model? Which driver would you recommend?

Thanks in advance!

[John Van Vliet]

you got me
i run fedora6 on an old dell (nvida card) not an ati
but i do seam to rembor seeing that there is a ati driver hack ( someplace on the web ) to add open GL suport

however ati cards and linux do not get along nvida is the way to go , if you can

[A.R.]

Thanks for your reply. I've installed ATI's proprietary Linux driver, but I still haven't found a way to enable "direct rendering", so OpenGL performance is very poor.

I've been following various non card-specific instructions found on the web, but no luck so far.

If I find the solution, I will report it here for posterity.

[A.R.]

Yes! I finally made it! I've got direct rendering to work: Celestia now runs smoothly and I'm happy

The key was building and installing the fglrx kernel module.

For anybody using the same graphics card (or, possibly, a similar model) here's a quick how-to. You'll need to do most of this stuff as root.

1. Download ATI's proprietary Linux driver (my Xpress 1100 card is not listed, so I've downloaded the driver for the 1250 - I'm pretty sure it's the same driver for every Xpress card).
   
2. Install the driver by running the downloaded binary.
   
3. Run the command:
   

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   aticonfig --initial --force
   
   
4. Build and install the fglrx kernel module, following the instructions detailed on this page.
   
5. Users of any Linux distro that enables compositing by default (at present *Ubuntu 6.10 is the only known distro which does this) will need this additional step.
   
   Edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file adding the following lines at the end:
   
   

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   Section "Extensions"
    Option "Composite" "false"
EndSection

   
   
6. Reboot

To verify the above has worked, issue this command:

Code: Select all

fglrxinfo

.

If the result doesn't include the word indirect, you're up and running.

HTH!