Debian Installation Guide

2007-11, see http://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo

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As of November 2005, ATI's drivers are in the non-free area of Debian. Make sure your /etc/apt/sources.list contains "contrib non-free" as well as main. You will, however, have to build your own kernel modules.

Warning: do not mix the non-free packages with the packages created by the installer as they will conflict in non-obvious ways. Before switching from one method to another, completely remove all fglrx-related packages. Never do upgrade from one method to another directly!

The buildpackage will fail on Debian 6.0 (Squeeze). They're quite broken.

In addition, the generic installer will fail if your / partition has less space available than it wants, even if all of the files would be placed on a different partition (such as /usr).

Update the xorg.conf file (Configuration)

sudo aticonfig --initial

Now restart X, or reboot for the driver changes to take effect.

Confirm that it worked

$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: MOBILITY RADEON 9700 Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.3.5461 (X4.3.0-8.19.10)

If it didn't work, you may need to run:

# mkdir -p /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri
# ln -s /usr/lib/dri/fglrx_dri.so /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri

Thanks to Maciej Matysiak for the clear debug here and solution here.

If it's still not working, try:

# rm /usr/lib/libGL.so*
# rm /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so*
# cd /usr/X11R6/lib
# cp /usr/lib/fglrx/diversions/lib/libGL.so.1.2 .
# ln -s libGL.so.1.2 libGL.so.1
# ldconfig

and confirm that 'ldd /usr/bin/fglrxinfo' is pointing to the right one.

People seem to be experiencing a broken libGL.so.1 after installing 8.41 on Debian/etch. If `amdcccle` complains that libGL.so.1 does't exist, DONT DELETE /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2 LIKE IT SAYS ABOVE. Make symbolic link to libGL.so.1.2 (which is included in fglrx package - 14 megs in size):

# cd /usr/lib
# ln -s libGL.so.1.2 libGL.so.1

This work fine for ATI mobility radeon 1400

(make backup the olds xorg.* files in your folder)

$ cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /home/username/xorg.conf.old
$ cp /var/log/Xorg.0.log /home/username/Xorg.0.log.old

(add contrib non-free in repositories)

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install module-assistant build-essential fakeroot dh-make debconf bzip2

(from www.amd.com download the current version of driver for your ATI)

$ sh ./ati-driver-installer-8.40.4-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Debian/lenny

$ apt-get install fglrx-amdcccle_8.40.4-1_i386.deb
$ apt-get install fglrx-driver-_8.40.4-1_i386.deb
$ apt-get install fglrx-driver-dev_8.40.4-1_i386.deb
$ apt-get install fglrx-kernel-src_8.40.4-1_i386.deb
$ apt-get -f upgrade
$ apt-get update

$ module-assistant prepare
$ module-assistant update
$ module-assistant a-i fglrx

$ aticonfig --initial

(reboot computer)

$ fglrxinfo

display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: MOBILITY RADEON 9700 Generic
OpenGL version string: 1.3.5461 (X4.3.0-8.19.10)