New Video Card, Need Install Help

A few days ago I just bought a Radeon 9500, and have had it installed in my system. It's worked great with Windows, but I need some help getting Linux to recognize it.

Just rebooted back into Mandrake today, and got a lovely supprise when X said that it couldn't load up the display. I went through all it's configuration stuff, and changed my card from Xpert128 (my old PCI card) to Radeon (the closest match there... I dunno if this is even right though). Rebooted, and it still had the same problem.

I don't know for sure what it's problem is, but I think it's still looking in the PCI slot for the video card. When I rebooted, it complained that there was no PCI device at so-and-so, and so couldn't load. I think if I could get it to ignore the PCI bus, and look at the AGP instead, it would work.

But I'm a n00b, so help me
JigPu

You'll need to install the ATi Driver . I've heard of people having trouble with the ATi Linux drivers, so your mileage may vary.

Alternatively, you can just use the "vesa" driver. It's not fancy, and don't expect an amazing display from it, but it almost always works.

Thanks for the VESA tip. It got X running, and now I've just got to install the driver. Hopefully it dosen't have a fit on me since ATI says it's for XFree 4.2.0, and I'm running 4.3.0

-- Hopes he can get this all working, and using Linux again
JigPu

I just finshed downloading the RPM from ATI, but it refuses to install.

There was an error durring packages instalation:

Problems occured durring instalation:
file /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2 from install of fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1 conflicts with the file from package XFree86-libs-4.5-5mdk

Click to expand...

Since "fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1" is the RPM's filename, I assume that this won't let me install it because it wasn't designed with XFree 4.3.0 in mind.

It had also said prior to this error that the signiture was incorrect, and that the package had no GPG signiture. I downloaded it twice (assuming it may have been downloaded incorrectly), but it still gave me the message. I ignored the error, and continued.

Any help??
JigPu

Yes, I know. I have an ATI card and went through this also. you need to use the --force option when installing.

ATI is trying to replace your old OpenGL libraries with the new ATI ones. Using the --force option will force the ATI driver to install over those libraries, and it should be fine.

BTW, where you downloaded the drivers, you should see a link called "Driver release notes", that is a VERY helpfull link. EDIT: Here is the link

ATI drivers under linux are fine, my only gripe is that they dont work at all with WineX. Good luck. ;

OK, so I open up the command line and navigate to where I put the RPM right? Then type in "rpm -i --force fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1.rpm"? Or do I need a ./ in front of that as well (making it "./rpm -i --force fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1.rpm")?

Sorry about all these questions, I'm running in Windows again and can't play around with Linux trying to get it to install...

JigPu

Your first one is the correct command:
rpm -i --force fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1.rpm

./ refers to the current directory. In the case of rpm, you don't have to use it because rpm looks in the current directory for the file to be installed.

Some times when you do need to append a ./ to the beginning of the a filename is when you're running a script or a program. The current directory is not normally in the $PATH environment variable, for security reasons, so you add the ./ to tell the shell where to find the file.

Had you run the second command ("./rpm -i --force fglrx-glc22-4.2.0-2.5.1.rpm") you would have gotten an error, because you told the shell to look for the rpm program, not the rpm to be installed, in the current directory.