Questions aboat Linu Drivers

B

Boron

New member
Hi!

I´m thimking of switching to Linux because it is al lot cheaper than Windows...

Now are my questions:
Where can I get drivers for my Radeon?
How does this card perform with Linux?
Is it possible to set up games like Diablo II under Linux? Maybe with an emulator?

I hope you guys can help me a little because I´m new to the Linux community and need some Help. Everyone who has some good information for me or some cool links in the net shoult post here or write me a mail.


Greetings,
Boron
 
Boron,

Where can I get drivers for my Radeon? The Radeon drivers come as part of 'XFree86' - you need the very latest version (4.1.0) after you have installed Linux, to get the best from your Radeon. You can download XFree86 here.

How does this card perform with Linux? Well, I think the card performs pretty well. I dont use Linux that much with regards for gaming, but for 2D work, it does just as well as Windows.

Is it possible to set up games like Diablo II under Linux? Maybe with an emulator? Games work a little differently under Linux, so dont expect to be able to play any Windows game on a Linux system. Support for games on Linux is getting better every day - a few of the really well known titles like Quake 3, Soldier Of Fortune, etc, work under Linux, but there is nothing like a 'game emulator' for Linux. The game has to have a new version written for it, so that it will run under Linux. The best place to find out what games are available is here. They are responsible for porting games over from Linux.

Finally... it is worth mentioning that Linux is not a very easy operating system to get into. Getting the new version of X Windows to work alongside your current system can be quite tricky. I wouldnt reccomend that you just dump Windows and have a go at Linux - try and set Linux up on a second computer, or dual boot it on your main machine just to get used to it.

Good luck.
 
As long as you get a current Linux distribution, it will come with a current version of X Windows. Mandrake Freq #2, for instance, comes with XFree 4.1.0. If you're looking for boxed sets instead of downloads, Mandrake 8.0 has XFree 4.0.3, which is pretty decent.
 
How to do it:

How to do it:

First of all, get MandrakeFreq #2, which is an unsupported "bleeding edge" distro based on Mandrake 8.0. This includes support in XFree86 and the Kernel for the Radeon w/DRI for proper 3D support. You might need to do a little tweaking to get it to work right, though.

During setup, tell it you want the "experimental" 3D support. Actually, this isn't experimental at all anymore, the dialouge box is an artifact of the setup originally used in the older Mandrake 8.0. It will probably be gone in the next full release.

As root, edit the file /etc/modules so that it includes the following lines (in order):

agpgart
radeon

and reboot.

You should now be able to use 3D games. To test the set up, run the gears program. If it appears to be running at several hundred FPS, you're good to go. If not, you may need to change "agpgart" to something like "agpgart agp_try_unsupported=1"

As far as running Windows games - you can actually get a lot of them to work using WINE, which is an alternate implimentaiton of the Win32 and Win16 APIs on top of UNIX. You're likely to get mixed results, but many work fine. For instance, the windows version of quake3 running on wine only runs a few FPS sloer than the native Linux version. You'll want to read up a little bit on how wine works and should be configured it you want to try this.
 
Thanks for the /etc/module tip,I used to edit rc.locale but this is much simpler.

But let it be knowned that it's quite easy to achieve with the original Mdk8.0.,even only with installCD 1 and about 100MB of d\l

All you need to do is rpm kernel-2.4.5-Xmdk(X>5supposedly,Igot -7 and it works) with the dependencies(initscripts...)and install XFree-4.1.0(very easy) and edit /etc/modules ;)

You still need the experimental 3d support so your XF86config-4 is written right but I backed up the file when I got it right the first time so it's not an issue anymore,I just put it back in any new install.

And that's it (for me),no kernel compiling, no agp_try-unsupported=1 .
 
Re: How to do it:

Re: How to do it:

Wordsmith said:

As root, edit the file /etc/modules so that it includes the following lines (in order):

agpgart
radeon

and reboot.
Click to expand...
Does insmod not work with these modules? Why would you have to reboot? The most you should have to do is edit the /etc/modules. Insmod agpgart, insmod radeon, and restart your X server.
 
Re: Re: How to do it:

Re: Re: How to do it:

NewBlackDak said:

Does insmod not work with these modules? Why would you have to reboot? The most you should have to do is edit the /etc/modules. Insmod agpgart, insmod radeon, and restart your X server.
Click to expand...

You're right, it will, but I figured my solution was easier for a newbie. But if you're an uptime freak, insmod will work just fine :)


I'm not sure if it tries to load radeon before you make changes. If so, you may have to do

rmmod radeon
insmod agpgart
insmod radeon

Because I think the order is important.


Also - a much more reliable way to check to see if its working than eyeballing gears - run glxinfo and see if it says direct rendering is on.
 
Mine's a desktop install(not for work) that boots into X automatically .I still use Win for certain games and I may boot in and out of Linux 4x on a good day.
So I don't need the aggravation of init 3...blah blah everytime.
But for the hard way you may also need to remove agpgart before reinserting both agpgart and radeon.
That's what I used at runlevel 3 to finally get it to work:
modprobe -r radeon
modprobe -r agpgart
modprobe agpgart
modprobe radeon
So that's why I edited rc.locale in that way for it's the last thing to load before X does.
But the /etc/modules is neater in the way that it seems to tell the right way(order???)to insert the modules while rc.locale catches the mistake after the fact.
 
Re: Re: Re: How to do it:

Re: Re: Re: How to do it:

Wordsmith said:


You're right, it will, but I figured my solution was easier for a newbie. But if you're an uptime freak, insmod will work just fine :)


I'm not sure if it tries to load radeon before you make changes. If so, you may have to do

rmmod radeon
insmod agpgart
insmod radeon

Because I think the order is important.


Also - a much more reliable way to check to see if its working than eyeballing gears - run glxinfo and see if it says direct rendering is on.
Click to expand...

If the radeon module is loaded before the agpgart module, you won't get agp support and dri will fail to load. You'll need to rmmod radeon, then insmod agpgart (use agp_try_unsupported=1 option if it gives errors). Starting X will automagically reload the radeon module if you got your XF86config-4 file setup correctly.
 
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