For: Mepis Linux
by: je.saist
| Alright, before I get started, I need to issue this disclaimer: You really need a R300 or later chipset for the Linux drivers to work. That is all graphics chipets starting from 9500 and going up. These drivers may work on R200 chips: These are the Radeon 8500, Radeon 9000, Radeon 9100, Radeon 9100 IGP, and Radeon 9200 cards. These drivers will NOT WORK AT ALL ON R100 CHIPS: These are Radeon, Radeon 7000, and Radeon 7500 series cards. Don't even ask about Rage 128. If you have any questions about what chipset your ATi card is based on, TechArp has a matrix listing here: Alright, onwards. Lets install the official ATi binary drivers and enjoy OpenGl. Now, this guide presumes that we are starting from a default installation of Mepis 6. If you have already enabled the dapper -backports in your repositories, go ahead and scroll on down to step 15. 1: Mepis 6 conviently places a Synaptic Link right on the front page. It's the little yellow Open Box. Click on the box  2: Enter your /root password Then Left Click on OK  3: Now, the first thing I am going to do is check our repositories. The reason why is that ATi's binary drivers are not Open-Sourced. Need to make sure that we are pulling from Non-Free repository listings.  4: Lets go up to the top of Synaptic and Left Click on Settings  5: Left Click on Repositories  6: We can see here that is a default distrobution of Mepis. Our dapper-backports is left unchecked. Scroll Down the listings  7: We can now see that both of the dapper-backports listings are unchecked, as well as cipherphunk *Cipherphunk has shut down, if you want more information, visit here: http://www.mepis.org/node/10965 Go ahead and left click in the empty box on the first dapper-packorts listing The reason why we want the backports is because this is where many 3rd party programs and applications are stored.  8: We can see here that the first dapper-backports entry is now checked. Left Click on the Second dapper-backports entry and try to click in the check box  9: At this point Synaptic will warn us that packages in universeare not supported. If you want more information about this, Ubuntu has a backport page up:  10: Go ahead and Left Click on OK  11: Left Click on OK once more.  12: Synaptic will now warn us that the repositories have changed and we need to reload. Click on Close  13: Go up to the top of Synaptic and Left Click on Reload.  14: Wait for the update to complete.  15: Now the system is fully up to date with the dapper -backports lists. We can now go searching for our drivers.  16: Go up to the top of Synaptic and Left Click on Search  17: Synaptic should now show us the Find box.  18: In the find box type in : fglrx  19: Now Left Click on Search  20: Synaptic will now give us a listing of all of the items that include fglrx.  21: Left Click on fglrx-control The are a few reasons why we are using the control package. First, it will automatically choose the right ATi driver from the list. Second, it will make verifying driver installation an easy task. This is the same process that we used with kpackage back in the original ATi guide.  22: Right Click on fglrx-control to bring up the context menu. Left Click on Mark for Installation  23: Again, by choosing the fglrx-control, which is conviently at the top of the Synaptic listing, we now also have the xorg-driver-fglrx package  24: Left Click on Mark  25: We should now see that fglrx-control is now showing a right facing yellow arrow instead of a yellow star.  26: As we scroll down the listings, we'll see that xorg-driver-fglrx is also highlighted and marked.  27: Go up to the top of Synaptic and Left Click on Apply  28: Synaptic will now ask for confirmation. Left Click on Apply  29: Wait for the download to install  30: It may take a while for the driver to install.  31: When Synaptic finishes, left click on Close  Onwards to Part 2, Enabling the driver in Mepis Linux |