Gentoo Linux ATI FAQ Luca Barbato Jorge Paulo Tiemo Kieft This FAQ should help users avoid some common installation and configuration issues related to DRI and X11 for ATI boards. 1.0.15 2005-09-05 Hardware Support
Is my ATI board supported?

Many ATI boards (but not all) are supported by xorg-x11, at least for the 2D accelerated features. The 3D support is provided either by the DRI project which is part of xorg-x11, or by ATI's closed source drivers.

Rage128Rage128xorg DRIR100Radeon7xxx, Radeon64xorg DRIR200, R250, R280Radeon8500, Radeon9000, Radeon9200xorg DRI, ATI DRIR300, R400, R500Radeon 9500 - x800xorg 2D, ATI DRI
GPU Common Name Support
I have an All-In-Wonder/Vivo board. Are the multimedia features supported?

The board's multimedia features are supported by the GATOS project. These drivers will be merged in the xorg tree shortly.

I'm not using an x86-based architecture. What are my options?

X11 support on the PPC or Alpha platforms is quite similar to x86 X11 support. However, ATI's closed source drivers are not supported on the PPC or Alpha, so you cannot use the 3D features of the R300 Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). If you have such a board and want it supported by X11, contact ATI and ask them to release the specifications for your system's GPU. The closed source driver for the AMD64 was released, so AMD64 users can now enjoy the same features as x86 users.

To enable agpgart support for certain AMD64 chip sets, you have to disable support for the K8 IOMMU.
I have a laptop. Is my ATI Mobility model supported?

It should be, but you may have a configuration issue due to the OEM PCI id that such chips may have. In most cases you may have to write the configuration file yourself or use the xorgconfig utility.

Installation
Packages
  • The xorg-x11 ebuild provides the X11 implementation
  • For a 2.6.x kernel the DRI modules can be built with the kernel or be provided by the x11-drm ebuild
  • For a 2.4.x kernel series you must use the x11-drm ebuild
  • The ati-drivers ebuild provides the ATI closed source X drivers and kernel modules, for both the 2.4 and 2.6 series kernels

If you want to use ATI's internal agpgart support instead of the Linux kernel one, the agpgart driver and the chip set specific driver (in your kernel configuration) must be built as modules or not at all. 

(If you want just the Rage128 drivers and modules installed with X11)
# VIDEO_CARDS="rage128" emerge x11-drm
(To have just the Radeon support)
(R100, R200, R250, R280, but not R300 yet)
# VIDEO_CARDS="radeon" emerge x11-drm
(To install the ATI closed source drivers)
(R200, R250, R280 and R300 only)
# emerge ati-drivers
(To install X11 without any kernel modules)
# emerge xorg-x11
Configuration

The use of xorgcfg or xorgconfig to generate the xorg.conf configuration file is suggested. Alternatively, you may use the Xorg auto configuration option: 

# X -configure

For more information on how to get a basic xorg.conf configuration file, please refer to the Gentoo Desktop Documentation Resources.

You can use fglrxconfig if you have installed the ati-drivers package. PPC users could use the Xorgautoconfig stand-alone configuration tool by emerging the Xorgautoconfig ebuild, but isn't required.
More Resources

More information on Gentoo Linux and the ATI Radeon binary drivers can be found on the Wedge Unofficial Gentoo ATI Radeon FAQ.