ATI R200 + XFree86 4.x mini-HOWTO

H�vard Stranden

<havarden at cloudchaser.net>

2003-09-21

Revision History
Revision 1.3.1	2003-09-21	Revised by: HS
Alternative 2 updated, minor errors corrected.
Revision 1.3	2003-07-27	Revised by: HS
Aternative 2 no longer deprecated. Several updates to this alternative.
Revision 1.2.1	2003-07-15	Revised by: HS
Date fixes.
Revision 1.2	2003-07-14	Revised by: HS
General update + alternative 5. Alternative 2 deprecated.
Revision 1.1	2002-09-30	Revised by: tab
Reviewed by LDP
Revision 1.0	2002-09-12	Revised by: HS
Initial release

This HOWTO is for anyone who owns an ATI Radeon 8xxx graphics card and wants it to function in a certain way or, in general, properly with XFree86, the X Window System. It describes the procedure of making XFree 4.x run on an ATI R200 (Radeon 8xxx series). There are several ways of doing this, with various results (further described below). If you know of any other ways (maybe better as well) of achieving the goal of this document, please let me know.

Table of Contents

1. Copyright & License

2. System Requirements

3. The alternatives

3.1. Experiences with XFree86's driver
3.2. Experiences with ATI's own driver
3.3. Experiences with DRI's driver
3.4. Experiences with the GATOS project's driver
3.5. Thoughts on Schneider Digital's driver
3.6. Still Haven't Chosen One?

4. Step-by-step instructions

4.1. Alternative 1: Using XFree86's Radeon driver
4.2. Alternative 2: Using ATI's own R200 Driver
4.3. Alternative 3: Using DRI's Latest Radeon Driver
4.4. Alternative 4: Using the GATOS Project's Latest Driver
4.5. Alternative 5: Using Schneider Digital's drivers

5. Links

A. GNU Free Documentation License

A.1. PREAMBLE
A.2. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
A.3. VERBATIM COPYING
A.4. COPYING IN QUANTITY
A.5. MODIFICATIONS
A.6. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
A.7. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
A.8. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
A.9. TRANSLATION
A.10. TERMINATION
A.11. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
A.12. How to use this License for your documents