Fedora AMD Graphics Drivers

The NiCE development team is currently gathering requirements to provide users the functionality needed to create custom geometries, meshes, and material properties. Geometry visualization will be provided through jMonkeyEngine: a free, open source, cross platform java framework that provides the necessary scene-graph to create and manipulate custom geometries. This article describes the steps needed to install the correct ati graphics driver on a Fedora 14 workstation to get jMonkey to function properly.

There are 2 methods:

• download the proper drivers using the yum software package management system
• download an install script directly from the AMD website.

Table of Contents

• Using YUM
• Using the AMD Install script

Using YUM

Login as root and reinstall the mesa-libGL package:

su -
yum reinstall mesa-libGL

Update the kernel (if needed):

yum update kernel

Install the driver:

rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm   http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm

yum install kmod-catalyst xorg-x11-drv-catalyst xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-libs

Edit grub.conf:

sed -i '/root=\s|$| nomodeset|' /boot/grub/grub.conf

Backup old initramfs and remake initramfs:

cd /boot
mv initramfs-`uname -r`.img initramfs-`uname-r.img-original
dracut -v /boot/initramfs-`uname-r`.img `uname -r`

REBOOT

Using the AMD Install script

Download the proper driver from AMD. Should be revision 8.85.7.1 posted on August 4 2011.
Reboot and log in as root in init 3
Make sure the downloaded script is executable:

chmod 755 ati-driver-installer-8.85.7.1.run

Install ./ati-driver-installer-8.85.7.1.run (follow on-screen instructions, accepting all defaults).

Fix xorg.conf by replacing all instances of "radeon" with "fglrx" (Should be in Device section(s))

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf
%s/radeon/fglrx/g

REBOOT

UPDATE: On Fedora 16 use akmod-catalyst instead of kmod-catalyst