Fedora 16 Installation Guide: Difference between revisions

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(expanded driver choice, re-organised a few bits from the previous editor, removed dracut steps as per your talk page)
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= Two Driver Choices =
= Two Driver Choices =


The Free Software ''radeon'' driver is making real progress in F16's kernel 3.1 and 3.2, it's expected to get even better in kernel 3.3 and 3.4.
There are two video drivers you can choose to run your ATI video card, one is called ''radeon'', the other is ''fglrx''.


The kernel 3.1 driver will easily run desktop compositing (eg: ''gnome-shell'', transparent terminal). It even manages 60fps VSync at 1920x1200 in many 3D games (eg: ''Darkplaces'' Quake engine) with no problems. Depending on your CPU, constant 45fps in 1080p Minecraft is easily doable.
=== radeon - the in-kernel driver ===


It is true that the Official AMD-supplied driver is the only real choice for running newer games, such as most things you'd buy through Steam, however the Free driver is more than capable for everyday desktop needs such as compositing and most native Linux games. Please research and test your requirements to determine the most suitable solution.
This is the Free Software driver included in the mainline Linux kernel. This driver is written by an open source community with no access to the hardware specs and is released under the GNU GPL. If software freedom is your main concern, this is the driver for you.


= Pre-built packages from RPMFusion =
Historically, the ''radeon'' driver couldn't do much, not even 2D acceleration. However, in Fedora 16's 3.1 and 3.2 kernels this driver is making real progress. It now supports 2D compositing, many 3D functions such as GLSL and Pixel Shaders, as well as other useful features like Kernel Mode Setting. There is currently a large push in graphics driver development upstream in the kernel, so this driver's expected to get even better in kernels 3.3 and 3.4.
 
The ''radeon'' driver packaged with Fedora 16 will easily run desktop compositing (eg: gnome-shell, compiz, transparent terminal). It manages 60fps VSync at 1920x1200 in many 3D games (eg: ''Darkplaces'' Quake engine, ''OpenArena'' Quake 3 engine) with no problems. Depending on your CPU, constant 45fps in 1080p ''Minecraft'' is easily doable.
 
You can read more about the radeon driver at [[http://www.x.org/wiki/radeon]]. You can also find a [http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature | list of supported features] and [http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonProgram | list of supported software] if you'd like to investigate using this driver.
 
It's worth noting that 2D performance is actually better in this driver than the proprietary driver. If you're only using Gnome 3 and typical Linux games, or not playing games at all, or wish to extend your laptop's battery life, this is probably your best choice.
 
=== fglrx - the AMD-supplied driver ===
 
This is the driver written and distributed by ATI, who have full access to the internal specs of the hardware, so can make a full-featured driver which supports all the capabilities of the hardware. The driver consists of a small kernel module which acts as a loader for the actual driver, which is distributed as a closed-source "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_blob | binary blob]".
 
''fglrx'' was originally written only for ATI's FireGL professional workstation cards (targeting the same market as nVidia's Quadro range) however it was soon expanded to include almost the whole ATI range. AMD continue to extend the driver after their acquisition of ATI. This driver also includes the ''Catalyst Control Center'' tool for configuring features like forcing anti-aliasing and anistropic filtering on for all OpenGL processing.
 
If you are running newer games, such as most things you'd get off Steam, ''fglrx'' is probably going to be your best choice. If you have a game which produces graphical glitches under the Free driver, it's worth trying this driver to see if the game works. Generally, performance in all 3D games and 3D applications will be measurably improved with this driver. As mentioned above, 2D performance is actually worse than the Free driver, though it's definitely fine for day-to-day desktop use.
 
Each driver as pros and cons, try both and see which is most suitable for your needs. The best thing about Linux is the choice to run whatever software components you like.
 
= Installing the AMD-supplied driver =
 
== Requirements ==
 
The AMD-supplied driver will work best in most cases if there is no xorg.conf file present before you begin the installation process. Move any existing xorg.conf files out of the /etc/X11 directory before installation.
 
You will need version 11.11 of the ATI driver or later for Fedora 16, earlier versions will not work with the version of XOrg that F16 ships with.
 
You require a Radeon HD2000 series or better to use the latest AMD-supplied driver.
 
=== kernel-3.2.9-2.fc16 and onwards ===
 
Due to an upstream sourcecode change in the Fedora ''kernel-headers'' package, building of AMD's ''fglrx'' module will currently fail with kernels 3.2.9-2.fc16 and later.
 
To fix this, we can revert a small edit. Open the file '''/usr/src/kernels/3.2.9-2.fc16.x86_64/arch/x86/include/asm/uaccess_64.h''' in a text editor.
 
On line 56 and 57 you will see:
 
<pre>
else
WARN(1, "Buffer overflow detected!\n");
</pre>
 
Comment this out so it reads:
 
<pre>
// else
// WARN(1, "Buffer overflow detected!\n");
</pre>
 
Your AMD kernel module will now build correctly.
 
* Reference: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=277547
 
=== Multiple Monitor Setups ===
 
If you have an existing multiple monitor setup, follow one of the install procedures, then transfer relevant sections of your old xorg.conf into the new version generated with aticonfig if required.
 
There are some excellent resource pages for those who are having difficulty in getting their multiple monitor setups running:
 
* http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Xorg_RandR_1.2
* http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/HowToRandR12
* man aticonfig
* One of the [[Ubuntu]] guides on this Wiki.
* AMD's own Catalyst documentation
 
If you need to start with a clean slate and all your monitors are connected, you can do the following to force a fresh xorg.conf to be generated taking into account the monitors present:
 
<pre>
su -
aticonfig --initial -f
</pre>
 
== Pre-built packages from RPMFusion ==


'''RECOMMENDED METHOD'''
'''RECOMMENDED METHOD'''
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This is easier than manually building the driver from AMD as you don't need to worry about passing kernel options via GRUB2, configuring DKMS, rebuilding the kernel module every time you do a kernel upgrade, or cleaning up any mess if you want to remove the driver.
This is easier than manually building the driver from AMD as you don't need to worry about passing kernel options via GRUB2, configuring DKMS, rebuilding the kernel module every time you do a kernel upgrade, or cleaning up any mess if you want to remove the driver.


=== Clean up previous AMD-supplied driver installation ===
=== Clean up previous Offical AMD driver installation ===


If you're coming from the AMD-supplied driver to RPMFusion's driver, you'll need to reinstall this package as the AMD driver installation changes files it contains.
If you're coming from the Official AMD driver to RPMFusion's AMD driver, you'll need to reinstall the ''mesa-libGL'' package as the Official AMD driver installation changes files it contains.


<pre>
<pre>
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''' Kernel module packages '''
''' Kernel module packages '''


Note that there are individual ''kmod-catalyst-'' packages which supply kernel modules for specific Fedora kernel versions. If you are using these and you upgrade the kernel without upgrading the ''kmod-catalyst-'' package, loading the proprietary driver will fail and you'll revert back to the free ''radeon'' graphics driver. Sometimes there is a day or so between Fedora upgrading their kernel and RPMFusion building a new kmod package.
Note that there are individual ''kmod-catalyst-'' packages in RPMFusion which supply kernel modules for specific Fedora kernel versions. If you use these and you upgrade the kernel without upgrading the ''kmod-catalyst-'' package, loading the proprietary driver will fail and you'll revert back to the Free ''radeon'' graphics driver. Sometimes there is a day or so between Fedora upgrading their kernel and RPMFusion building a new ''kmod-catalyst-'' package.


The ''akmod-catalyst'' package we installed above automatically builds a new kernel module at boot-time when the kernel is upgraded, so you never have to worry about this.
The ''akmod-catalyst'' package we installed above automatically builds a new kernel module at boot-time when the kernel is upgraded, so you'll never have to worry about this.


= Official AMD Driver =
== Official AMD Driver ==


=== Requirements ===
=== Preinstall required packages ===
 
The official AMD driver will work best in most cases if there is no xorg.conf file present before you begin the installation process.  In other words, move any xorg.conf files out of the /etc/X11 directory before installation.  The possible exception to this rule is if you have something other than a single monitor setup, for example you may have a multiple monitor setup that you have edited.  If this is the case, move your existing xorg.conf out of /etc/X11 and allow amd-driver-installer a chance to create a working xorg.conf from scratch.  Later on you can transfer sections of your old xorg.conf into the new AMD-generated version, if required (See "Multiple Monitor Setups" below).  FYI:  You will need version 11.11 of the ATI driver or later for F16, earlier versions will not work.  Also, please note that no card rated below Radeon HD 2000 will currently work with latest amd-driver-installer.


Before you begin, it is also a prerequisite to blacklist radeon.  The radeon driver is dug in to the system like a tick, but with the following procedure, removing it is rather painless. Edit the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and add radeon to the list.  After you do that, run the following in a root shell:
The script from AMD builds the kernel module and a set of modules for XOrg. The Official AMD installer requires some development packages to be installed:


<pre>
<pre>
/sbin/new-kernel-pkg --package kernel --mkinitrd --dracut --depmod --install $(uname -r)
su -
yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers gcc gcc-c++
</pre>
</pre>


This will generate a new initramfs that does not have radeon built in.  On the next boot, the radeon module should be gone.  It is better not to reboot however until you complete the steps below.  Otherwise you may not have a DE to work in.
We'll also want to remove any kernel-devel packages from old versions of the kernel. Check your current kernel version with:
 
Important Notice: As of March 5th, 2012, no kernel above 3.2.9-1.fc16 will compile on amd-driver-installer. If you have unfortunately updated your system to a kernel newer than 3.2.9-1.fc16, then you will need to drop back to 3.2.9-1.fc16 in order to get amd-driver-installer properly compiled. For links to this specific kernel and more (current) information, visit ##fedora channel on Freenode and get the details. This wiki will be updated as new information emerges.
 
=== Preinstall required packages ===
 
The script from AMD builds a set of modules, one of which is fglrx.ko (the kernel module) and a set of fglrx modules for Xorg. The AMD installer has some development package prerequisites which we install below:


<pre>
<pre>
su -
uname -a
yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers gcc gcc-c++
</pre>
</pre>


Note: glibc-devel is a dependency of gcc and should be pulled in during the yum session above.
Check all installed kernel packages with
 
There are some important caveats to observe here in this step.  First, you need to make sure that there are no kernel-devel's left over from older kernel installs.  Usually kernel-headers will be replaced in an update; however, kernel-devel never is, and the older ones are left hanging around after kernel updates.  So the objective here is that you need to manually remove any kernel-devel's that do not match the running kernel.  To run a check on kernel packages present and how they match, run the following:


<pre>
<pre>
su -
rpm -qa | grep kernel
rpm -qa | grep kernel
</pre>
</pre>


Remove any kernel-devels that do not match. For example:
Remove any ''kernel-devel'' packages which do not match the latest kernel version. For example:


<pre>
<pre>
rpm -ev --nodeps kernel-devel-3.2.9-1.fc16.x86_64
su -
yum remove kernel-devel-3.2.9-1.fc16.x86_64
</pre>
</pre>


Note that in this case we are careful to specify the exact package name that was given to us by rpm command above.
Note we are careful to specify the exact package name that was given to us by the rpm command above.
 
Second: You need to be on the kernel that you have updated to.  Running an update and then running the amd-driver-installer without booting to the new kernel beforehand is going to be a fail for you.


One final point. Be sure to read the "Important Notice" in the "Requirements" section above before proceeding.
Boot into the latest kernel before continuing. Building the module on a kernel which you don't have -devel packages for will fail. Building the module on one kernel then booting into another will result in the module not working.


=== Download driver ===
=== Download driver ===
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<pre>
<pre>
su -
su -
chmod 700 amd-driver-installer-XX-X-XXX.XXX_XX.run
chmod +x amd-driver-installer-XX-X-XXX.XXX_XX.run
sh ./amd-driver-installer-XX-X-XXX.XXX_XX.run
sh ./amd-driver-installer-XX-X-XXX.XXX_XX.run
</pre>
</pre>
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=== Confirming Installation ===
=== Confirming Installation ===


Check the build install log.
Check the build install log:


<pre>tail /usr/share/ati/fglrx-install.log</pre>
<pre>tail /usr/share/ati/fglrx-install.log</pre>


You should see data confirming the module build worked.
You should see data confirming the module build worked:


<pre>build succeeded with return value 0
<pre>build succeeded with return value 0
duplicating results into driver repository...
duplicating results into driver repository...
done.</pre>
done.</pre>
=== Multiple Monitor Setups ===
There are some excellent resource pages for those who are having difficulty in getting their multiple monitor setups running.  Please peruse the following pages for tips on solving multiple monitor configurations:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Xorg_RandR_1.2
http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/HowToRandR12
If you need to start with a clean slate and all your monitors are connected, you can do the following to force a fresh xorg.conf to be generated taking into account the monitors present:
<pre>
su -
aticonfig --initial -f
</pre>
Other resources include ''man aticonfig'', Catalyst documentation, one of the [[Ubuntu]] guides.


=== Uninstalling Official AMD driver ===
=== Uninstalling Official AMD driver ===


Run AMD's uninstall script.
Run AMD's uninstall script:


<pre>
<pre>
Line 156: Line 200:
</pre>
</pre>


The following steps are not strictly required, because the amd-driver-installer is written to put all files back as they were before the install. One set of files that amd-driver-installer alters is the mesa library set. To be sure of a mint-condition installation (especially if you are upgrading to the next catalyst), you reinstall the following package:
The following steps are not strictly required because the amd-driver-installer is written to put all files back as they were before the install. One set of files that amd-driver-installer alters is the mesa library set. To be sure of a mint-condition installation (especially if you are upgrading to the next Official driver version) reinstall the following package:


<pre>
<pre>
Line 163: Line 207:
</pre>
</pre>


For those of you that are running Wine or Crossover from Codeweavers.com, the following command will reinstall all the mesas that (should) be on your system. This example is for users running Wine/Crossover on a 64 bit system:
For those running Wine or Crossover from Codeweavers.com, the following command will reinstall all the mesa libraries that (should) be on your system. This example is for users running Wine/Crossover on a 64 bit system:


<pre>
<pre>
su -
yum reinstall mesa-dri-filesystem.i686 mesa-libGL.x86_64 mesa-dri-drivers.x86_64 mesa-libGL.i686 mesa-dri-filesystem.x86_64 mesa-libEGL.x86_64 mesa-dri-drivers.i686 mesa-libGLU.x86_64
yum reinstall mesa-dri-filesystem.i686 mesa-libGL.x86_64 mesa-dri-drivers.x86_64 mesa-libGL.i686 mesa-dri-filesystem.x86_64 mesa-libEGL.x86_64 mesa-dri-drivers.i686 mesa-libGLU.x86_64
</pre>
</pre>
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we'll want to edit it so it is
we'll want to edit it so it is


<pre>linux /vmlinuz-3.2.9-1.fc16.x86_64 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 radeon.modeset=0 blacklist=radeon</pre>
<pre>linux /vmlinuz-3.2.9-1.fc16.x86_64 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 radeon.modeset=0 rdblacklist=radeon blacklist=radeon</pre>


These entries do the following:
These entries do the following:
* '''radeon.modeset=0''' disables "Kernel Mode Settting" for the Free Software driver (ie: the driver telling the kernel to setup the screen resolution, instead of XOrg doing it)
* '''radeon.modeset=0''' disables "Kernel Mode Settting" for the Free Software driver (ie: the driver telling the kernel to setup the screen resolution, instead of XOrg doing it)
* '''blacklist=radeon''' stops the kernel from loading the Free Software ''radeon'' driver altogether
* '''rdblacklist=radeon blacklist=radeon''' stops the kernel from loading the Free Software ''radeon'' driver altogether


From here you can manually remove and reinstall the proprietary drivers, either with yum or with PackageKit's ''Add/Remove Software'' application, as desired.
From here you can manually remove and reinstall the proprietary drivers, either with yum or with PackageKit's ''Add/Remove Software'' application, as desired.

Revision as of 11:39, 22 March 2012

Two Driver Choices

There are two video drivers you can choose to run your ATI video card, one is called radeon, the other is fglrx.

radeon - the in-kernel driver

This is the Free Software driver included in the mainline Linux kernel. This driver is written by an open source community with no access to the hardware specs and is released under the GNU GPL. If software freedom is your main concern, this is the driver for you.

Historically, the radeon driver couldn't do much, not even 2D acceleration. However, in Fedora 16's 3.1 and 3.2 kernels this driver is making real progress. It now supports 2D compositing, many 3D functions such as GLSL and Pixel Shaders, as well as other useful features like Kernel Mode Setting. There is currently a large push in graphics driver development upstream in the kernel, so this driver's expected to get even better in kernels 3.3 and 3.4.

The radeon driver packaged with Fedora 16 will easily run desktop compositing (eg: gnome-shell, compiz, transparent terminal). It manages 60fps VSync at 1920x1200 in many 3D games (eg: Darkplaces Quake engine, OpenArena Quake 3 engine) with no problems. Depending on your CPU, constant 45fps in 1080p Minecraft is easily doable.

You can read more about the radeon driver at [[1]]. You can also find a | list of supported features and | list of supported software if you'd like to investigate using this driver.

It's worth noting that 2D performance is actually better in this driver than the proprietary driver. If you're only using Gnome 3 and typical Linux games, or not playing games at all, or wish to extend your laptop's battery life, this is probably your best choice.

fglrx - the AMD-supplied driver

This is the driver written and distributed by ATI, who have full access to the internal specs of the hardware, so can make a full-featured driver which supports all the capabilities of the hardware. The driver consists of a small kernel module which acts as a loader for the actual driver, which is distributed as a closed-source "| binary blob".

fglrx was originally written only for ATI's FireGL professional workstation cards (targeting the same market as nVidia's Quadro range) however it was soon expanded to include almost the whole ATI range. AMD continue to extend the driver after their acquisition of ATI. This driver also includes the Catalyst Control Center tool for configuring features like forcing anti-aliasing and anistropic filtering on for all OpenGL processing.

If you are running newer games, such as most things you'd get off Steam, fglrx is probably going to be your best choice. If you have a game which produces graphical glitches under the Free driver, it's worth trying this driver to see if the game works. Generally, performance in all 3D games and 3D applications will be measurably improved with this driver. As mentioned above, 2D performance is actually worse than the Free driver, though it's definitely fine for day-to-day desktop use.

Each driver as pros and cons, try both and see which is most suitable for your needs. The best thing about Linux is the choice to run whatever software components you like.

Installing the AMD-supplied driver

Requirements

The AMD-supplied driver will work best in most cases if there is no xorg.conf file present before you begin the installation process. Move any existing xorg.conf files out of the /etc/X11 directory before installation.

You will need version 11.11 of the ATI driver or later for Fedora 16, earlier versions will not work with the version of XOrg that F16 ships with.

You require a Radeon HD2000 series or better to use the latest AMD-supplied driver.

kernel-3.2.9-2.fc16 and onwards

Due to an upstream sourcecode change in the Fedora kernel-headers package, building of AMD's fglrx module will currently fail with kernels 3.2.9-2.fc16 and later.

To fix this, we can revert a small edit. Open the file /usr/src/kernels/3.2.9-2.fc16.x86_64/arch/x86/include/asm/uaccess_64.h in a text editor.

On line 56 and 57 you will see:

else
WARN(1, "Buffer overflow detected!\n");

Comment this out so it reads:

// else
// WARN(1, "Buffer overflow detected!\n"); 

Your AMD kernel module will now build correctly.

Multiple Monitor Setups

If you have an existing multiple monitor setup, follow one of the install procedures, then transfer relevant sections of your old xorg.conf into the new version generated with aticonfig if required.

There are some excellent resource pages for those who are having difficulty in getting their multiple monitor setups running:

If you need to start with a clean slate and all your monitors are connected, you can do the following to force a fresh xorg.conf to be generated taking into account the monitors present:

su -
aticonfig --initial -f

Pre-built packages from RPMFusion

RECOMMENDED METHOD

This is easier than manually building the driver from AMD as you don't need to worry about passing kernel options via GRUB2, configuring DKMS, rebuilding the kernel module every time you do a kernel upgrade, or cleaning up any mess if you want to remove the driver.

Clean up previous Offical AMD driver installation

If you're coming from the Official AMD driver to RPMFusion's AMD driver, you'll need to reinstall the mesa-libGL package as the Official AMD driver installation changes files it contains.

su -
yum reinstall mesa-libGL

Setup RPMFusion

There are instructions on http://www.rpmfusion.org/ but this should do it.

su -
rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm  http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

Install Catalyst driver packages

This procedure is the same for 32-bit and 64-bit, yum will automatically install the correct driver and libs for your architecture.

su -
yum install akmod-catalyst xorg-x11-drv-catalyst xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-libs

32-bit Libraries on 64-bit OS

If you want to play 32-bit games on a 64-bit Fedora installation, you will need to install the 32-bit libraries in addition to the above step.

su -
yum install xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-libs.i686

Kernel module packages

Note that there are individual kmod-catalyst- packages in RPMFusion which supply kernel modules for specific Fedora kernel versions. If you use these and you upgrade the kernel without upgrading the kmod-catalyst- package, loading the proprietary driver will fail and you'll revert back to the Free radeon graphics driver. Sometimes there is a day or so between Fedora upgrading their kernel and RPMFusion building a new kmod-catalyst- package.

The akmod-catalyst package we installed above automatically builds a new kernel module at boot-time when the kernel is upgraded, so you'll never have to worry about this.

Official AMD Driver

Preinstall required packages

The script from AMD builds the kernel module and a set of modules for XOrg. The Official AMD installer requires some development packages to be installed:

su -
yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers gcc gcc-c++

We'll also want to remove any kernel-devel packages from old versions of the kernel. Check your current kernel version with:

uname -a

Check all installed kernel packages with

su -
rpm -qa | grep kernel

Remove any kernel-devel packages which do not match the latest kernel version. For example:

su -
yum remove kernel-devel-3.2.9-1.fc16.x86_64

Note we are careful to specify the exact package name that was given to us by the rpm command above.

Boot into the latest kernel before continuing. Building the module on a kernel which you don't have -devel packages for will fail. Building the module on one kernel then booting into another will result in the module not working.

Download driver

Download the driver for your particular card from http://support.amd.com/

It will look similar to: amd-driver-installer-XX-X-XXX.XXX_XX.run.

Install driver

Run the file as root in the sh shell.

su -
chmod +x amd-driver-installer-XX-X-XXX.XXX_XX.run
sh ./amd-driver-installer-XX-X-XXX.XXX_XX.run

Select the default install, do not generate distribution packages.

Confirming Installation

Check the build install log:

tail /usr/share/ati/fglrx-install.log

You should see data confirming the module build worked:

build succeeded with return value 0
duplicating results into driver repository...
done.

Uninstalling Official AMD driver

Run AMD's uninstall script:

su -
sh /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh

The following steps are not strictly required because the amd-driver-installer is written to put all files back as they were before the install. One set of files that amd-driver-installer alters is the mesa library set. To be sure of a mint-condition installation (especially if you are upgrading to the next Official driver version) reinstall the following package:

su -
yum reinstall mesa-libGL

For those running Wine or Crossover from Codeweavers.com, the following command will reinstall all the mesa libraries that (should) be on your system. This example is for users running Wine/Crossover on a 64 bit system:

su -
yum reinstall mesa-dri-filesystem.i686 mesa-libGL.x86_64 mesa-dri-drivers.x86_64 mesa-libGL.i686 mesa-dri-filesystem.x86_64 mesa-libEGL.x86_64 mesa-dri-drivers.i686 mesa-libGLU.x86_64

Troubleshooting

In the event you install the driver and are greeted with a blank screen or corrupted video signal when starting X, you are able to manually disable the Free Software radeon driver to troubleshoot.

Turn your system off and on again. On the GRUB boot screen, press e to edit the default boot entry, scroll down to the kernel line (which begins linux), then press e again to edit the line.

Add the entries radeon.modeset=0 blacklist=radeon to the end. For example, if your kernel line is

linux /vmlinuz-3.2.9-1.fc16.x86_64 LANG=en_US.UTF-8

we'll want to edit it so it is

linux /vmlinuz-3.2.9-1.fc16.x86_64 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 radeon.modeset=0 rdblacklist=radeon blacklist=radeon

These entries do the following:

  • radeon.modeset=0 disables "Kernel Mode Settting" for the Free Software driver (ie: the driver telling the kernel to setup the screen resolution, instead of XOrg doing it)
  • rdblacklist=radeon blacklist=radeon stops the kernel from loading the Free Software radeon driver altogether

From here you can manually remove and reinstall the proprietary drivers, either with yum or with PackageKit's Add/Remove Software application, as desired.