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.


Radeon Framebuffer
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