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staypufft
n00b
Joined: 27 May 2011
Posts: 1
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 Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 12:56 am Post subject: pre installation query |
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| i have recently started setting up an old laptop with a mobility radeon 9000 graphics card, after some searching it turns out i apparently need the combination of kernel 2.6.21.7 fglrx driver 8.28.8 and xorg 7.1 to use the proprietary ati drivers (which i need to use due to the open source drivers having certain limitations) is this something i can easily accomplish with gentoo as it seems very difficult with other packaged linux distributions? |
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Hu
Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 21706
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| Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 3:04 am Post subject: |
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That kernel is ancient. Its successor, v2.6.22, was released Sun Jul 8 2007. It likely has many known security problems, relative to more recent kernels. To address your immediate question, I strongly doubt you can conveniently get Gentoo working if you insist on such an old kernel. Various core components, such as sys-fs/udev require a recent kernel, so you would need to acquire a very old sys-fs/udev too. Other components may also require significant backdating. This would in turn deprive you of the security fixes and general maintenance normally available to distribution users.
What exactly do you need to do, that you cannot use either a newer x11-drivers/ati-drivers or a modern x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati? |
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john.newman
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 17 Oct 2009
Posts: 85
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| Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 6:23 am Post subject: |
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I dont understand why you cant use the latest and greatest kernel.
Once something works, it will stay working going forward.. that's the whole point of software
emerge the latest gentoo-sources, configure the kernel properly, VIDEO_CARDS="fglrx" emerge ati-drivers .. will work, if it doesnt you should report bugs to get it working in the next version. |
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Hu
Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 5:37 pm Post subject: |
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| john.newman wrote: | Once something works, it will stay working going forward.. that's the whole point of software
emerge the latest gentoo-sources, configure the kernel properly, VIDEO_CARDS="fglrx" emerge ati-drivers .. will work, if it doesnt you should report bugs to get it working in the next version. |
Not necessarily. I know the nVidia proprietary drivers sometimes drop support for older nVidia cards before those cards could reasonably be expected to have died of old age. It would not surprise me to know that the ATI proprietary drivers do likewise. Due to how the proprietary drivers are designed, they may require source code changes to keep them compatible with new Linux kernel versions. Since the proprietary drivers can only be readily modified by their respective vendors, you can end up in a situation where you cannot simultaneously have a recent kernel, a recent graphics driver, and a graphics driver that works for your (old) card. I do not track the card support status enough that I can say whether the card used by the OP is supported by the newest ati-drivers. |
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john.newman
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 17 Oct 2009
Posts: 85
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| Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 6:29 pm Post subject: |
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in that case, you need to buy a newer card.
i have a radeon HD 3870 lying around i'll sell you for cheap, like 20 bucks.  works with latest kernel |
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Installing Gentoo
