"Ask ATI" dev thread

[dseeland]

Need help installing fglrx on RHEL 5.2 x86 for a radeon 9250. Getting "Fatal: error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/s.6.18-92.el5PAE/kernel/drivers/char/drm/fglrx.ko): cannot allocate memory" using fglrx64_6_8_0-8.28.8-1.x86_64.rpm. Is it me, or is there something wrong with the card or driver?

[d2kx]

You're trying to install fglrx 8.28.8? I mean... seriously?

[dseeland]

You're trying to install fglrx 8.28.8? I mean... seriously?

seriously. The card only came with a Windows driver CD. Went to AMD and followed their process for identifying the OS and card model to the driver download. If that's a bad idea, I'd appreciate any information that will help me get the card working.

Thanks.

[Zhick]

@dseeland: Depending on what you want to do, you're probably much better of with the free radeon driver (called xf86-video-ati on most distributions). It wont give you the same 3d-performance as the fglrx-blob, but in general is much more stable and snappier when it comes to 2d-tasks (and compiz/compositing effects). And looking at you're graphic-card it doesn't seem as if you want to do any heavy 3d tasks on that box.
There are howtos on the web on installing it for most distributions.

Edit: Oh, and if you _really_ want to use fglrx (you don't, trust me): I think this "cannot allocate memory" error message usually comes up if the radeon or drm kernel-module is still loaded. try lsmod | grep radeon and lsmod | grep drm to see if that's the case.

[d2kx]

I'd also recommend the free driver if you don't have any special needs (but RHEL is pretty outdated regarding that I think).

The fglrx 8.28.8 you tried to install is over three years old. Try this driver:

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ati-driver-installer-9-3-x86.x86_64.run

[Kano]

8.28.8 is the correct driver. 9-3 is for R300 to R500 but not for his card.

[zeldaman55069]

radeon 9250... i have that card laying around somewhere... and I'm going to have to say use the radeon driver not the fglrx... getting that installed was a nightmare and the radeon driver was so much faster... if your going to be gaming(which you won't be with that card), then might i suggest an upgrade to a better card?

[cutterjohn]

<better replace this since the AMDites will moan endlessly>

Anyways, so when can we actually expect a cat release that is actually something worthy of being called driven for pros? As the current drivers are so horrible, that if I was an AMD manger all of the driver crew would've been looking for new jobs by now...

[energyman]

what is so horrible about the current driver?

[cutterjohn]

what is so horrible about the current driver?

The usual crap that doesn't work right, e.g. 2D display corruption, 3D effects freeze, video freeze, video tearing, slow performance, faulty installation(e.g. requiring root to make changes yet supplying no way to do so at leats w/Ubuntu -- I wonder if they used to install suid... bad little boys if they did...) etc. [EDIT] Mostly the same crap that never worked properly since I started using catalyst wit 9.2... only thing that ever got fixed was the annoying flashing of the screen with every update of a windowed opengl app, -> "pro" app applicable... too bad it was a trivial fix...[/EDIT]

Most of this doesn't appear with the Windows drivers, yet they have their own problems with certain applications & games...