This is Gentoo's testing wiki. It is a non-operational environment and its textual content is outdated.
Please visit our production wiki at https://wiki.gentoo.org
ATI FAQ
This article contains Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) to help users avoid some common installation and configuration issues related to DRI and X11 for AMD/ATI boards.
Hardware Support
Is my AMD/ATI board supported?
Many AMD/ATI boards (but not all) are supported by xorg-x11, at least for the 2D accelerated features. The 3D support is provided either by xorg-x11, or by AMD's closed source drivers. AMD's closed source driver was available since the R200 GPUs, but support for current versions of X11 is limited. The last version of the Catalyst drivers fglrx had support only for R600 (since HD5000) and newer GPUs and X.org server 1.17. Older GPUs will use the mature open source xorg-x11 driver. For newer GPUs since GCN (Graphics Core Next) Generation 1.1 (Southern Islands and newer) drivers are provided as open source AMDGPU and closed source AMDGPU-PRO. Both have excellent 2D and 3D accelerated performance.
| GPU | Common Name | Driver | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MESA | Kernel | XFree86/X.org X11 | ||
| Rage128 | Rage128 | – | rage128 | rage128 |
| R100 | Radeon 7xxx, Radeon 64 | radeon | radeon | radeon |
| R200, R250, R280 | Radeon 8500, Radeon 9000, Radeon 9200 | r200 | radeon, fglrx (deprecated) | radeon, (deprecated: fglrx) |
| R300, R400 | Radeon 9500-X850 | r300 | radeon, fglrx (deprecated) | radeon, (deprecated: fglrx) |
| R500 | Radeon X1300-X1950 | r300 | radeon, fglrx (deprecated) | radeon, (deprecated: fglrx, radeonhd) |
| R600 | Radeon HD2000 series | r600 | radeon, fglrx (deprecated) | radeon, (deprecated: fglrx, radeonhd) |
| RV670 | Radeon HD3000 series | r600 | radeon, fglrx (deprecated) | radeon, (deprecated: fglrx, radeonhd) |
| RV770 (R700) | Radeon HD4000 series | r600 | radeon, fglrx (deprecated) | radeon, (deprecated: fglrx, radeonhd) |
| Evergreen | Radeon HD5000 series | r600 | radeon, fglrx | radeon, fglrx |
| Northern Islands | Radeon HD6000 series | r600 | radeon, fglrx | radeon, fglrx |
| Southern Islands | Radeon HD7000 series (except HD7790), early Radeon R7/R9 series | radeonsi | radeon, fglrx | radeon, fglrx |
| Sea Islands | Radeon HD7790, Radeon R7/R9 series | radeonsi | radeon, fglrx, AMDGPU, AMDGPU-PRO | radeon, amdgpu, fglrx |
| Volcanic Islands | late Radeon R9 series, Radeon R9 Fury, R9 Nano, R9 Fury X, Pro Duo | radeonsi | radeon, fglrx, AMDGPU, AMDGPU-PRO | amdgpu, fglrx |
| Arctic Islands | Radeon RX 400/500 series | radeonsi | AMDGPU, AMDGPU-PRO | amdgpu |
| Vega, Raven Ridge | Radeon RX Vega | radeonsi | AMDGPU, AMDGPU-PRO | amdgpu |
The Radeon Feature Matrix at X.org lists the open source driver support level for each part of the graphics card hardware.
I have an All-In-Wonder/Vivo board. Are the multimedia features supported?
You don't need to use anything special for the board's multimedia features; x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati will work just fine.
I'm not using an x86-based architecture. What are my options?
X11 support on the PPC or Alpha platforms is quite similar to x86 X11 support. However, AMD/ATI's closed source Catalyst drivers are not supported on the PPC or Alpha, so you will have to use the open source drivers. The Catalyst drivers are only available for x86 and AMD64. The open source xorg-x11 drivers should work well on all architectures.
To enable agpgart support for certain old AMD64 chipsets, you have to disable support for the K8 IOMMU.
I have a laptop. Is my ATI Mobility model supported?
It should be, but you may have a configuration issue due to the OEM PCI id that such chips may have. In such cases, you may have to write the configuration file yourself.
Installation
Packages
There are two ways of getting drivers for your AMD/ATI card:
- The
xorg-x11ebuild provides the X11 implementation - The
ati-driversebuild provides the AMD closed source X drivers and kernel modules
If you want to use AMD/ATI's internal agpgart support instead of the Linux kernel one, the agpgart driver and the chip set specific driver (in your kernel configuration) must be built as modules or not at all.
Please read the Hardware 3D acceleration guide for more information on installing drivers for your AMD/ATI graphics card.
Configuration
You may not need to manually create xorg.conf or modify it if you are using the open-source radeon driver. Try running without it first. If this fails, you can use the auto-configuration option of X:
root #X -configureIf you use the proprietary ATI drivers, you can get assistance for configuring X through the aticonfig application (which is part of the x11-drivers/ati-drivers package). See fglrx for more information.
For more information on how to get a basic xorg.conf configuration file, please refer to the X server guide.
PPC, AMD64, and x86 users can use the
xac stand-alone X configuration tool by emerging x11-misc/xac, but isn't required.If you're using
ati-drivers , then you'll need to disable radeonfb (and probably any other framebuffer drivers) in your kernel config, as it conflicts with the built-in framebuffer in ati-drivers.Switching to OpenGL
Once X is installed, configured, and running, it can use the AMD/ATI OpenGL libraries:
root #eselect opengl set atiSee also
- Hardware acceleration guide - Contains more information on configuring a AMD/ATI graphics card.
External resources
- Wedge Unofficial Gentoo ATI Radeon FAQ
- Unofficial AMD Linux Driver Wiki
This page is based on a document formerly found on our main website gentoo.org.
The following people contributed to the original document: Luca Barbato, Jorge Paulo, Tiemo Kieft, Joshua Saddler
They are listed here because wiki history does not allow for any external attribution. If you edit the wiki article, please do not add yourself here; your contributions are recorded on each article's associated history page.