compiling ATI driver

Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:57:22 -0600

I have also posted this same question to LinuxQuestions.org -- check out 
the newbie section there.

The dexter.py application was useless as was "failsafe" because it did not 
change the driver from "aty" -- which doesn't work -- to "fbdev", which 
does. I fired up my text editor "pico" and I wound up commenting out every 
last mode line in XF86Config-4. I made sure the "Device" section had 
"fbdev" as the driver. I changed the "Screen" section DefaultDepth to 8. I 
changed the "Display" subsections for Depth 8, 15 and 16 to each read Modes 
"1024x768" ; and changed the ViewPort and Virtual lines to each read "0 0". 
[I found out through trial and error that the ViewPort and Virtual lines 
must read that way or the desktop becomes bigger than you can view and your 
mouse pushes out the edge of the screen. Very annoying.]

I thought about trying another distro but for Old World Macs, NetBSD 
<www.netbsd.org> seems to be about it because they don't seem to have an 
issue with CPU cards. I looked into it and decided not to try when I read 
about the Open Firmware requirements.

YDL is stable for me on 2.4; it's just aggravating when I know there's a 
better driver and I can't use it to get to 24 bit video.

##  scott

At 05:10 PM 1/28/03 -0500, you wrote:
>Good luck in getting anyone here to help you with this issue. I've posted 
>quite a few times about similar problems with my PPC 9500 (XLR8 G3/500) 
>w/ATI Radeon [PCI]) and no one has ever replied to my question. I too am 
>only seeing the fbdev driver.
>I don't know enough about Linux and compiling code to know exactly what 
>you did when you ".I opened it in pico and found the libraries it 
>requires, and tried to
>compile it after reading the man gcc pages. I got an error message that it
>could not find one of the files it requires, video/fbcon.h. I could locate
>it, and I opened it in pico, so I know it's real.", but you're FAR ahead 
>of me getting 1024x768 8bit video.
>
>I've only hit twice, and the video only shows up on the left half of my 
>screen, or won't at all with anything other than 640x480 (using the 
>"Generic SVGA driver- when running "/usr/lib/yi/dexter.py" ). I tried 
>altering the profile once I had finaly gotten to KDE, but upon restarting 
>X, no dice whatsoever.
>
>So far, the only concrete info that I can offer, is to downgrade to YDL 
>2.2, as it seems this is the only way to get "OldWorld" Macs to run YDL stable.
>
>I wish YDL would at least give us a new XFree86 rpm to so if maybe this 
>issue with ATI/PCI cards on "OldWorld" Macs is resolved, but I'm not 
>holding my breath.
>
>Only other alternative I've thought about, is just trying another Distro 
>of Linux for PPC.
>
>Good Luck, and please email me if you get this resolved, as I really like 
>that YDL is based off of Red Hat (Which I've tinkered with on x86, but 
>there are major differences as far as initial setup goes), but it is 
>useless to me until I learn the command-line, and that in and of itself, 
>is a project all it's own.
>
> >>From: Scott Alan Burch <scottb@accom.com>
>Subject: compiling ATI driver
>Reply-To: yellowdog-newbie@lists.terrasoftsolutions.com
>
>
>I got YDL 2.3 installed over the weekend on a 9600 with a Powerlogix ZIF/G3
>500 chip, which I believe is really running at 333mhz or so ...
>
>I could only get the X configuration to see "fbdev" as a driver for my ATI
>card. Consequently, I am running KDE at 1024x768 @ 8bits. I tried to use
>the other ATI driver choices, but they did not work. In looking around the
>directories, I did find what I am guessing is an uncompiled driver for the
>ATI Mach64 GX card I have; it has a .c extension.
>
>I opened it in pico and found the libraries it requires, and tried to
>compile it after reading the man gcc pages. I got an error message that it
>could not find one of the files it requires, video/fbcon.h. I could locate
>it, and I opened it in pico, so I know it's real.
>
>So I guess I have two questions:
>Do I have to compile this code to make the driver for my card?
>What can I do to make gcc see this file?
>
>thanks  ##  scott
>
>--
>___________________________________________________________
>I made conscience decision in a "semi-conscious" state
>
>
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