SUCCESS: ATI fglrx, Fedora Core 5, HP nw8240 Notebook

Managed some level of success this afternoon, in getting Fedora Core 5
to run in graphics mode on my HP nw8240 notebook.

The following worked for me. Your mileage may vary, and I'm not
responsible for any damage that may occur by following these steps.

(... damn pain in the ass having to add all that legal disclaimer crap
all the time...) sigh

Here is what I did.

1. Did a fresh install of Fedora Core 5. God only knows what I had
done to the previous install and there wasn't anything important on
there anyway, so I blew it all away and did a fresh install. Note
that you have to install FC5 in text mode, not in graphics mode.
Previous Fedora Core distros let you install in low-resolution
graphics mode, but FC5 will disappear right into the puckerbrush if
you try the graphics mode installation.

2. rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm (to establish a
repository for livna.org stuff)

3. yum install kmod-fglrx xorg-x11-drv-fglrx. This installs BOTH the
kmod-fglrx and the xorg-x11-drv-fglrx. And, since the updated kernel
(2.6.17 vs the out of the box 2.6.15) is required the above command
line installs that too. It also makes changes to xorg.conf, but it
makes those changes INCORRECTLY and will screw things up royally if
you don't know about it; more on that below.

4. Reboot.

5. As noted in step 3 above, "yum install...(etc.)" makes WRONG
changes to xorg.conf, and aticonfig CANNOT fix them. You need to
restore the OLD, unmodified copy of xorg.conf, which mercifully was
saved under the filename xorg.conf.ati-config-backup or something
fairly close to that (it'll be obvious when you look in the /etc/X11
directory). Copy that file over xorg.conf and then run aticonfig with
no arguments. It will give you a usage message and tell you that for
initial configuration you need to say aticonfig --initial
--something_else ... I forget what the "something else" is but
again, if you run aticonfig with no arguments and look at the text
dump you get, it'll be obvious.

6. Reboot again.

7. Log on and say "startx" and it should come up in 1920x1200 mode.

Regarding Step 3 ... Note that on the livna.org "Why switch to Livna
ATI & Nvidia RPMS?" page, it tells you to use

yum install kernel-module-fglrx-$(uname -r)

As regards FC5, this information is incorrect. It works on Fedora
Core 4 but not on Fedora Core 5. No doubt it was written when FC4
came out but was not updated (yet) for FC5. The correct command is:

yum install kmod-fglrx xorg-x11-drv-fglrx

I suppose that...

yum install kmod-fglrx
yum install xorg-x11-drv-fglrx

.... would also work but I didn't do that.

In any case, don't forget...

rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm

....first, or yum won't find the fglrx modules.

On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 15:21:36 -0400, C.J.Clegg wrote:

5. As noted in step 3 above, "yum install...(etc.)" makes WRONG
changes to xorg.conf, and aticonfig CANNOT fix them.

Yea, it used to do it right, but they "improved" something
somewhere along the line :-).