[Solved]Videocard

Unia · 2010-05-22 20:40:57

After you guys answered my first questions towards Arch, I've got a question about my Graphicscard.
I'll install Arch on my Acer Aspire 5740G, which has an ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5470. Which driver would I need? On the wiki I see two options; Radeon or RadeonHD.

Last edited by Unia (2010-05-23 09:58:14)

toad · 2010-05-22 21:54:43

Try them and see. You might even find the ati driver useful...

Unia · 2010-05-22 22:20:32

I don't want to mess around with the system yet.
I'm new to Arch and have only been seriously working with Linux in general for about 6 months, so messing around with my base system isn't something I'm currently looking for. I want my base to be strong you see.
(I don't mean to offend you now)

Anyways, which driver should I pick?

EDIT: And the ATi driver isn't in the repos (right?), so how would I install that?

Last edited by Unia (2010-05-22 22:21:02)

Inxsible · 2010-05-22 23:28:36

You have two options: open source drivers or proprietary drivers.

If you go with 1) then you should install xf86-video-ati which is for all the 2xxx 3xxx 4xxx and 5xxx cards. So Radeon HD5470 would be supported.
the xf86-video-radeonhd is for r500 and 5600 chips.

if you want the proprietary drivers, then you will have to install the catalyst drivers from aur. There have been reports of a lot issues with catalyst. So I simply use the xf86-video-ati for my Radeon 2400 Pro XT card.

To install anything that isn't in the official repos you can do 1 of 2 things : download the tarball and then use pacman -U option. Look up the man pages for pacman.

The second option is to use a pacman helper for AUR. eg aurget, yaourt and there are a bunch of others as well. You will have to install this using the pacman -U ...but after that you can use that software to install anything from AUR exactly like pacman.

Last edited by Inxsible (2010-05-22 23:30:47)

flamelab · 2010-05-22 23:37:26

RadeonHD is useless, don't use it. I propose that to everybody. It's development has been mostly stopped.

You could use xf86-video-ati, but you won't have 3D until 2.6.35 kernel, and sufficient 3D till .36 kernel (6 months from now+).

Your only choice now is catalyst (proprietary ati driver). Check the arch wiki for that.

Unia · 2010-05-23 08:53:47

What's the difference between Catalyst and xf86-video-ati, besides opensource/closedsource?

Cdh · 2010-05-23 09:46:51

catalyst is the driver that directly comes from ati and therefore should have all features completely.
ati does only "support" the development of xf86-video-ati whatever this means.

There is this page where one can see how many features xf86-video-ati already has for which card: http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

Unia · 2010-05-23 09:58:01

I guess I'll take the catalyst then.

Thank you guys!

toad · 2010-05-23 10:11:37

Didn't work for me, I had to use the ati driver

Unia · 2010-05-23 11:05:27

Welcome to the beautiful world of Linux:lol:

I'll try catalyst first, if that wont work I'll try xf86-video-ati.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-22 20:40:57

[Solved]Videocard

#2 2010-05-22 21:54:43

Re: [Solved]Videocard

#3 2010-05-22 22:20:32

Re: [Solved]Videocard

#4 2010-05-22 23:28:36

Re: [Solved]Videocard

#5 2010-05-22 23:37:26

Re: [Solved]Videocard

#6 2010-05-23 08:53:47

Re: [Solved]Videocard

#7 2010-05-23 09:46:51

Re: [Solved]Videocard

#8 2010-05-23 09:58:01

Re: [Solved]Videocard

#9 2010-05-23 10:11:37

Re: [Solved]Videocard

#10 2010-05-23 11:05:27

Re: [Solved]Videocard

Board footer