Running Linux 2.6 and Fedora Core 2 / 3 on the IBM ThinkPad
T41
Alex Fedosov
[ overview ]
[ video ]
[ frequency scaling ]
[ suspend ]
[ ACPI ]
[ TV out ]
[ other ]
The default Radeon driver that comes with X.org 6.7 (Fedora Core 2) or 6.8
(Fedora Core 3) works fine on the T41. However it is missing some features, most
notably power management and hardware 3D rendering support. Additionally,
the default kernel does not support the Radeon framebuffer, which is nice
to have if you want more real estate than the usual 80x25 screen in text
mode.
[ ATI proprietary drivers ]
[ open source driver with PowerPlay ]
[ Radeon framebuffer ]
ATI Radeon proprietary drivers |
If you want good hardware rendering support (and probably other good stuff)
and don't mind running proprietary drivers, you can
download the Radeon driver from ATI (it's for XFree86 4.3.0 but thankfully
seems to be binary compatible with X.org 6.7).
Note: you will need to have the kernel source available, whether you
compiled a custom kernel or are using a Fedora one.
Install the driver:
# rpm -Uvh --force fglrx-4.3.0-3.9.0.i386.rpm
Now you need to build a driver kernel module. As always, because it's
closed source, incompatibilities abound. I ended up applying two patches
(one, two)
to get the driver to cleanly compile.
# cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/
# patch -p1 < fglrx-3.9.0-fc2.patch
# patch -p1 < patch-2.6.7-mm
Now build and install (note: during the install process, the script will
attempt to insert the newly compiled module, which will fail if you are
running X and are using the radeon DRM module.
So switch to text mode and run init 3
and rmmod
radeon
as root before compile/install.)
# cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/
# sh make.sh
# cd /lib/modules/fglrx/
# sh make_install.sh
If everything is ok, you should get no errors.
There is a program to generate XFree86 config file, called
fglrxconfig
, but if you don't want to mess with editing
xorg.conf config file and copying and pasting stuff from the generated
XFree86 config, you can just steal my xorg.conf
that already has the necessary changes.
So far I've noticed one problem: switching from X to text mode and back
messed up the colors in X, requiring X restart (logging out and logging
back in.) A pain, although presumably one should not need text mode too often.
ATI Radeon open source drivers with PowerPlay
|
Fedora Core 2:
If you just want better power management for your Radeon, you can download
a different open source driver that supports ATI PowerPlay. Check
Volker's page for instructions. Then run
xset dpms 0 0 <timeout>
to enable screen blanking
after the given timeout value (in seconds.) You can have this happen
automatically by putting a script that does it in
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/
.
Fedora Core 3:
It looks like power management is built into
the radeon driver that comes with Xorg 6.8. You do need to put the
following in your xorg.conf
:
Option "DynamicClocks" "on"
After restarting X, you should see a message in the log informing you that
that dynamic clocking is enabled.
You need to build in the following options into your kernel (no modules):
[*] Support for frame buffer devices
<*> ATI Radeon display support
<*> Framebuffer Console support
When booting you need to pass the following option on the kernel command
line (i.e. in your grub.conf -- adjust as needed):
video=radeon:1400x1050-24
Now you should see a happy penguin when the system boots. And a bigger
console to boot! (no pun intended) Then as far as X goes, you can use
either the radeon driver or
the fbdev driver, although I can't imagine why you'd prefer the latter.
:) I found it necessary to include the option DefaultFbBpp
32
in the Screen
section for the fbdev driver to work.
Last modified Saturday December 11, 2004
Alex Fedosov
Department of Computer Science, University of San Francisco