Open source drivers

From cchtml.com

There are two open source drivers for ATI Radeon videocards:

The free (open source) driver "radeon" currently supports the following chips:

      R100        Radeon 7200
      RV100       Radeon 7000(VE), M6, RN50/ES1000
      RS100       Radeon IGP320(M)
      RV200       Radeon 7500, M7, FireGL 7800
      RS200       Radeon IGP330(M)/IGP340(M)
      RS250       Radeon Mobility 7000 IGP
      R200        Radeon 8500, 9100, FireGL 8800/8700
      RV250       Radeon 9000PRO/9000, M9
      RS300       Radeon 9100 IGP
      RS350       Radeon 9200 IGP
      RS400       Radeon XPRESS 200/200M IGP (2d only)
      RV280       Radeon 9200PRO/9200/9200SE, M9+
      R300        Radeon 9700PRO/9700/9500PRO/9500/9600TX, FireGL X1/Z1
      R350        Radeon 9800PRO/9800SE/9800, FireGL X2
      R360        Radeon 9800XT
      RV350       Radeon 9600PRO/9600SE/9600, M10/M11, FireGL T2
      RV360       Radeon 9600XT
      RV370       Radeon X300, M22
      RV380       Radeon X600, M24
      RV410       Radeon X700, M26 PCIE
      R420        Radeon X800 AGP
      R423/R430   Radeon X800, M28 PCIE
      R480/R481   Radeon X850 PCIE/AGP

To configure X to use accelerated 3d drivers, the configuration file /etc/X11/xorg.conf should be edited as follows:

 Section "Device"
   Identifier "ATI 3D"
   Driver "ati"
 EndSection
 Section "Screen"
   Device "ATI 3D"

Driver Library Installation

It is necessary to install the ["libgl1-mesa-dri"] driver library package, in order for the 3D capabilities of the card to be utilized.