AIW Radeon 8500 128MB

Remote

The kernel (at least the 2.6 kernel) has support for the remote under Device Drivers | USB | HID. Check it out!

Adding TV capabilities

On 22 April 2004 I took a look at the current state of support for the AIW Radeon 8500 128MB. I found the following:

• XFree86 4.3.0 Radeon driver (the AIW Radeon 8500 uses the R200 chip) -- supports hardware 3D acceleration. The XFree86 log reports
  
• Chipset ATI Radeon 8500 QL (AGP)
• Direct rendering enabled
  
• RADEON(0): For information on using the multimedia capabilities of this adapter, please see http://gatos.sf.net -- so the DRI and DRM parts have been incorporated, but not the multimedia
  
• Gatos project
  
• ati.2 - Enhanced XFree86 drivers for ATI videocards, with emphasis on TV-input
• km is a Linux kernel module that provides Video4linux interface to video capture capabilities
  
• km needs v4l -- whose module is called videodev
• AVview - Audio-video viewer program
• tv_output - Enhanced XFree86 drivers for ATI videocards, with emphasis on TV-output (currently in active development, use the CVS)
  
• ati_remote - Linux kernel module that interfaces ATI RF remote as a regular input device
• Debian packages
• gatos: only for the old ATI All-in-Wonder cards; not for Radeon cards
• Radeon cards need both a kernel patch and an X11 patch
• fglrx-driver fglrx-sources fglrx-kernel-src fglrx-control-qt3 (now in Debian)
• rovclock                 Utility to control frequency rates of your radeon card
  

Installation history

I installed XFree86 4.3 in March 2003 and it works great -- it has the drivers for the Radeon card: the main radeon_drv.o module and the radeon.o direct rendering module.

A. The XFree log file shows that the following module is loaded:

/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.o

This module is supplied by the xserver-xfree86 package in binary form.

B. Direct rendering is done using the radeon.o module, which must be compiled from

xlibmesa4-drm-src Xfree86 4.3 drm source snapshot (version 4.3.0-0ds3v1)

When I untarred this tarball in /usr/src, I got the source code in the /modules/xlibmesa4-drm directory. Compile it right there:

make -f Makefile.linux radeon.o

I then copied that to /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/char/drm/. You may need to insert it manually, but I think it gets automatically loaded when you run startx, called by the XFree configuration file.

Once running, lsmod lists a radeon module, and modinfo radeon yields this:

root@gubbio:/var/log# modinfo radeon
filename: /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/char/drm/radeon.o
description: "ATI Radeon"
author: "Gareth Hughes, Keith Whitwell, others."
license: "GPL and additional rights"
parm: drm_opts string

The log shows (II) RADEON(0): Direct rendering enabled.

Gatos

• Gatos applications -- http://gatos.sourceforge.net/apps.php
• Gatos has a frame grabber for the All-in-one - http://gatos.sourceforge.net/km.php

You should put this on cyberspace. Cyberspace can become a frame-grabber machine. It's possible that you can grab anything that is piped into the screen.

It also has a system (Tcl (Tool Command Language, pronounced tickle) and the Tk toolkit)for scripting control of the autio-video engine, so you don't need to have anything show on a screen http://gatos.sourceforge.net/avview.php

You won't get DRI support with this driver, but you will be able to capture video. Put it in cyberspace. This also means you put the big flat screen in 23 -- so you need another screen for your office. Sorry, but this is too much of a hassle to deal with now.

ATI's Linux driver

Fire GL 8800 Linux/XFree86 Drivers
Driver Version X4.2.0-1.2.0
For XFree86 4.2.0
Posted May 30, 2002
This bundle contains the necessary files for any X86 version of Linux based on libc 6.2 (glibc 2.2).
To see which glibc (a.k.a. libc) you are running, issue "sh Check.sh".

The driver is fglr200-glc22-4.2.0-1.2.0.i586.rpm (I had to use IE to get it and you'll need to enter the site through the link above). I downloaded it on 6 June 2002 and placed it on cyberspace in the transfer directory. It's likely that ATI will post updates to this driver.

"The rpm I downloaded has it's own kernel > modules. It overwrites my XF86Config every time ;-( - so make a > copy before you install them."

Example configuration file.

"There seems to be no support for XVideo, so I have to choose between playing Quake and mplayer with scaling ;-(. "

"The best option, imho, is to start a second server with regular open source drivers and use xv."

"There are some pre-compiled kernel-modules that come with the rpm for redhat/suse stock kernels, but src is also provided (hint: look in the lib/modules/fglr200/build_mod/ subdirectory of the rpm, there is src and the script make.sh which builds them). I have successfully built the modules with 2.4.18 and 2.4.19-pre10. I get unresolved symbols for firegl_public.o, but it still works (i dont know what that module is for). After building the modules I copied them to /lib/modules/`uname -r`/misc by hand."

Xig's Linux driver

Accelerated-X Summit v2.1 for Radeon 8500AIW (no support for digital flat panel, but support for DVI)

Discussion on comp.os.linux.x

I just tried the new ATI FireGL 8800 workstation Linux driver with my AIW Radeon 8500DV and...it works, and with DRI available, yet.

The FireGL 8x00 is based on the Radeon 8500, but is aimed primarily toward the professional workstation/simulator market (so it isn't really *that* surprising that the driver for FireGL works with the R8500). UNfortunately, while DRI works, some OpenGL stuff (notably Quake III: Arena and UT) won't work (while glxgears smokes, and TuxRacer is gorgeous).

However, I tried Q3A under WINE (not a true Linux installer, since I can't find the blasted thing)...would a true Linux Q3A installer solve the OGL woes?

Christopher L. Estep
news://news.ucla.edu/comp.os.linux.x/16526

Yes. q3a has been reported to work. See the thread on the dri mailinglist(s). Here it segfaults. Better get the latest point release 4 linux.

--
mail: frankpuntvandammebijstudent-kuleuven-ac-belgie
homepage: www.student.kuleuven.ac.be/~m9917684
jabber: yalu@jabber.com
Driver hacker? Do me a favor and help the dri guys http://dri.sourceforge.net to code an accelerated driver for the ati radeon 8500. Save the world from proprietary drivers ;-) Thanks!
news://news.ucla.edu/comp.os.linux.x/16527