Configuring the fglrx module for ATI graphics chips in CentOS and RHEL 5
building and installing fglrx directly from amd is easy and takes 5 minutes.
The installer builds the rpm for you.
1) Download the driver from AMD.
ati-driver-installer-8-7-x86.*.run (ver = 8.512) - works well.
2) Install the necessary kernel headers & devel
yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers rpm-build
3) Install the necessary compat libraries
yum install 'compat-libstdc++*' 'compat-glibc.*'
4) as root
4.1) to see what pkgs can be built
sh ati-driver-installer-8-7-x86.*.run --listpkg | less
4.2) to build the rpm for your distro (for me = RedHat/RHEL5)
sh ati-driver-installer-8-7-x86.*.run --buildpkg RedHat/RHEL5
4.3) install it
rpm -ivh fglrx64_7_1_0-8.512-1*
5) Assuming this was successful - configure it (as root)
aticonfig --initial
or to see the eye-watering array of options
aticonfig | less
One issue with the driver is you'll have to rebuild the kernel modules after each kernel update.
Here's a script I use:
cat fglrx_build_kernel_module.sh
#!/bin/sh
# Builds updated kernel module (based on currently loaded kernel)
#
# This driver was installed via RPM, built using:
# sh ati-driver-installer-9-3-x86.x86_64.run –buildpkg RedHat/RHEL5_64a
cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod
./make.sh
cd /lib/modules/fglrx
./make_install.sh
echo “To complete the process you must 'init 3' and 'init 5'”
echo “lsmod | grep fglrx”