ATI graphics help?

so i just picked up my dell inspiron 8000 from a friend yesterday, popped in the BT3 live cd, and loaded it in flux, when everything is loaded the screen is messed up. I then assume that its a driver issue. So I go on the wiki and there I find the ATI module. I burn me a new iso with the module in it, and the module will not load during the boot up (something about corrupt download). Then I go on here and search for anything that has to do with ati graphics. Turns out that the only thing I find starts with downloading the official drivers. So then I go to ATI and look for my driver. Its not there. So now I am completely stumped. What should I do now, I'd like to get this to work as soon as possible so I can play around.

For starters it would be helpful if you could actually mention the specific ATI model that you have. A fast google search showed that your laptop can ship at least with either the ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility or the ATI Mobility M4 card. Besides from this, does the issue present itself also when booting with KDE instead of Flux?

sorry i forgot to mention the card. I was still searching around while I was typing up the initial post. Well my card is the ATI Mobility 128 AGP 4x card. I booted up with kde and flux and both have the same video issue.

As far as I remember ATI does not really support the mobile cards and users have to depend on the laptop manufacturer to supply/update the drivers. This is probably why you could not locate the appropriate driver for your card on the ATI homepage. The Dell homepage does however seem to have a driver available for download for your particular card, but I naturally cannot vouch for how well this will work:
http://support.dell.com/support/down...g=en&TabIndex=

alright ill give it a try later. thanks so much tron

ok so i just did an hdd install of bracktrack and i downloaded the drivers. now i need to try to install the .rpm. I tried rpm -ivh atimp310.rpm (from a wiki i found) and it wont work. Yes i am a linux noob but im willing to learn. can you help me with installing using rpms?

do i?


bt ~ # rpm2tgz atimp310.rpm
bt ~ # ls -l
bt ~ # installpkg atimp310.tgz


ok so i did it and rebooted and it didnt work. what am i doing wrong?

i would REALLY like to get this done soon. its frustrating using kde with the display choped up into 4 pieces and shuffled around.

I really want to help you with this cuase it took me ages to get things going with my ati mobility radeon x1600 card so have you tried to:
cd to directory with file:
~# chmod +x atimp310.rpm (changes permissions to make it executable)
~# rpm -i atimp310.rpm
or:
~# rpm --install atimp310.rpm

And did you realize that no matter which mobility radeon card you try to get a driver for it will direct you to th same download page for ati-driver-installer-8-7-x86.x86_64.run there may be some chance it could work with your card. But i really don't know, I am quite new to this myself and have had to re-install BT3 every week or so cause i fudge it completely.
If you do want to give it a go get th driver:
hyperttp://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/linux/linux-radeon.html
copy kernel header (kernel.lzm) from USB to root/ of HD install
then
bt/# lzm2dir kernel.lzm /
then cd to folder contianing ati-driver-installer-8-6-x86.x86_64.run:
bt~# chmod +x ati-driver-installer-8-6-x86.x86_64.run
bt~# ./ati-driver-installer-8-6-x86.x86_64.run
follow prompts
Then end current session:
from log in window type
bt~# aticonfig --initial -f
bt~# startx

I hope some of this is helpful and is not just gunna muck you up.

thanks for your reply!

ok so i did.

~# chmod +x atimp310.rpm (changes permissions to make it executable)
~# rpm -i atimp310.rpm
or:
~# rpm --install atimp310.rpm

and it gives me

error: Failed dependencies:
XFree86 is needed by Xconfig-atimp310-1024-7-0
/bin/sh/ is needed by Xconfig-atimp310-1024-7-0

im assumming that this isnt for xorg its for Xfree. am i right?

ill try the second part you showed me right now and see if it works.

where do i find kernel.lzm? i dont see it in my iso. i guess ill download it from the wiki

alright i just did it and it still didnt work. i am really starting to hate this laptop lol

i get

Segmentation Fault

AtI did not have a specific linux driver for graphics card either, but they do have a linux propriety driver

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/l...ux-radeon.html

I used it to set up my duel screen :)

thats the same driver that akintoo referred to earlier.

i run

aticonfig --initial -f

and i get

Segmentation Fault

ITS WORKING!!! WOOT!! I just switched the xconfig that was created the install of the driver with the one that was provided in the hdd install. thanks so much for your help guys!