Yesterday I finally ditched the ATI proprietary Linux driver and installed the open source driver. Two reasons:
1. ATI driver 8.27 does not work with the latest kernel. Have to install a newer version of the driver in order for it to work with the kernel.
2. However, ATI has dropped the support for radeon 9200/9250 SE from their latest driver.
Three methods to install the open source driver according to the Wikipedia.
1. Compile everything from the kernel.
2. Emerge the x11-drm module separately. I.e. do not choose 'Direct rendering support' while configuring the kernel.
3. Use the CVS drm source from xorg.
I chose the first method. After compiling kernel:
1. Edited my /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 file
via-agp
agpgart
radeon
2. Edited my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
## Important bits
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
SubSection "extmod"
Option "omit xfree86-dga"
EndSubSection
Load "freetype"
Load "dri"
Load "drm"
Load "glx"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "** ATI Radeon (generic) [radeon]"
Driver "radeon"
Option "BusType" "PCI" ## I added this because without this line, x server will start, but it will lock up after I open any application. For example, the computer locked up after I opened xterm and type 'ls' or 'dmesg'.
EndSection
3. I tried playing sauerbraten after installing this driver and it worked fine. Unlike the hiccups that I had trying to play this game using the proprietary driver.
