ATI Radeon HD fglrx driver install on Fedora 17
The following steps will get the proprietary ATI Radeon driver installed on Fedora 17.
I found this process to be extremely touchy, although I’ve only done it twice. I recommend starting with a fresh install, including software groups ‘Development Tools’ and ‘Development Libraries’. If you’ve got an existing install, or any attachment to your current build, proceed at your own risk.
1. Do a fresh install, including ‘Development Tools’, ‘Development Libraries’.
Don’t update the system yet, we want to keep that spare kernel in the repos for later. If you want to use your existing build, you can try eliminating all other kernels on your system like this:
# See what kernel you're currently running. # (This example is from my RHEL box, but the same concepts apply to any distro.) [[email protected] ~]$ uname -r 2.6.32-279.14.1.el6.x86_64
Look for installed kernel versions, other than the one you’re currently running, and uninstall them.
[[email protected] ~]$ rpm -qa ^kernel* kernel-devel-2.6.32-279.5.2.el6.x86_64 kernel-headers-2.6.32-279.14.1.el6.x86_64 kernel-2.6.32-279.14.1.el6.x86_64 kernel-devel-2.6.32-279.11.1.el6.x86_64 kernel-firmware-2.6.32-279.14.1.el6.noarch kernel-devel-2.6.32-279.14.1.el6.x86_64 kernel-2.6.32-279.5.2.el6.x86_64 kernel-2.6.32-279.11.1.el6.x86_64
Remove everything that doesn’t match the current running kernel.
yum remove kernel-devel-2.6.32-279.5.2.el6.x86_64 kernel-devel-2.6.32-279.11.1.el6.x86_64 kernel-2.6.32-279.5.2.el6.x86_64 kernel-2.6.32-279.11.1.el6.x86_64
Check that you’ve got only one of each package: ‘kernel-devel’, ‘kernel-headers’, and ‘kernel’ before proceeding. The version numbers must match the running kernel.
2. Download the ATI Radeon proprietary driver from ATI’s website.
This is the one I used for my Radeon HD 4850
wget http://www2.ati.com/drivers/legacy/12-6/amd-driver-installer-12.6-legacy-x86.x86_64.zip
3. Prepare the system for fglrx install by blacklisting the ‘radeon’ driver.
vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
blacklist radeon
4. Generate a new initramfs that does not have ‘radeon’ built in.
/sbin/new-kernel-pkg --package kernel --mkinitrd --dracut --depmod --install $(uname -r) reboot
5. Remove any xorg configuration files.
On a fresh install, there shouldn’t be any. Copy the fresh install dir just in case.
cp -r /etc/X11 /etc/X11.orig
6. Install build deps.
yum install gcc gcc-c++ # kernel-devel kernel-headers should already be installed
7. Install driver deps.
yum install mesa-dri-filesystem.{i686,x86_64} mesa-libGL.{i686,x86_64} \
mesa-dri-drivers.x86_64 mesa-libGL.{i686,x86_64} mesa-dri-filesystem.x86_64 \
mesa-libEGL.x86_64 mesa-dri-drivers.i686 mesa-libGLU.x86_64
8. Install driver.
init 3 unzip ./amd-driver-installer-<version>.zip chmod 755 ./amd-driver-installer-<version>.run ./amd-driver-installer-<version>.run
9. Install the latest kernel, in case ATI mangled your current one
This usually isn’t necessary, but I like to have an untouched kernel on hand just in case. Keep in mind that if you do this, you’ll have to select the second kernel in the GRUB menu list on boot, since that’s the one with the ATI driver installed on it.
yum install kernel reboot
And that should do it! Your system should load up the new fglrx kernel module on boot. If all went well, you now have a fully functional proprietary driver installed, which will give you the best possible performance for gaming in Linux. Now you can proceed to install Steam, to gain access the best Linux games.
Reference: Unofficial AMD Linux Community.