Hi guys, I'm trying to get my Radeon working so I can play some Quake, but I get version mismatch from the kernel's module, radeon.o. How can I acquire a radeon.o that isnt outdated?

I would imagine that if you need to recompile your kernel to either generate the new module, or just put it straight in the kernel, avoids the need to play about with the modules. You realise that you'll stilll need to get X working on top of loading the module yeah? I think it will only provide some kernel interfaces that X then uses to improve performance.

For details on recompiling the kernel have a look at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO.html but you won't need to get the kernel support setup to just get X working and play quake. What distro you using? If you havn't got X setup then run something like Xconfigurator (RedHat), XF86Setup (generic setup, including Slackware) or drakeX (if I remember the command correctly, might be Xdrake, for mandrake)

Cheers

Jamie...

Thx for the help, but I've already recompiled the kernel, and I have X set up properly already. The problem is that even the latest linux kernel has an outdated radeon module-I believe its like 1.0.0 and X requires 1.1.0. So, X still runs fine, its just that when it sees the version mismatch when loading its modules, it disables DRI and therefore, you cant actually get any acceleration. There is from what I've read a way to get XFree86 to generate a radeon.o module itself, so you wont get the version mismatch, however I havent been able to find the instructions for how to do it. I did find where someone had actually put one up for download, but it had unresolved symbols.

are you doing a "make modules" and "make modules_install" when you recompile the kernel? i don't see how you can be getting kernel version mismatches on a natively compiled module.

yea, i do a make modules and make modules_install, its just that the kernel maintainers usually have an outdated module. the module in and of itself is fine, its just that XFree86 is requiring the newer version for itself.

ok... well, what version of x are you using? 4.1.0 is supposed to have accelerated support built in for the ati radeon graphics, but i have heard of people having trouble with it before. x version 3.3.6 doesn't have radeon support, so if you're trying to use a 4.x driver with 3.3.6, that could be the problem.

http://www.xfree86.org/4.1.0/Status6.html#6 - this link has info on the ati support of x versions

No, im usin x 4.1.0.

really? damn. ok... i'm close to being stumped.

ok... last ditch question... where is the radeon.o that you're using? did it come with the kernel (/lib/modules/kernelXXXX/video/radeon.o), or did it come with x(/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/radeon.o)?

Im using the one from the kernel, which is the problem-I need one from X itself but I cant find it, and cant figure out if its supposed to already be there somewhere, or if i have to convince x to make it somehow

ok...

/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.o <- that's the file you probably need.
it comes with the 4.1.0 download along with a few other drivers, whether you need 'em or not. you should have it; if you don't, let me know and i'll email you a copy of the one i have.

i have an nvidia card, so my /etc/XF86Config file has a section like this:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Primary-Card"
BoardName "NVIDIA"
Chipset "RIVATNT2"
Driver "nvidia"
EndSection

this tells the xserver to look for the file nvidia_drv.o to use as a driver. this isn't the same one as the kernel module; it uses the kernel module, but it's a driver, not a module.

your XF86Config should look something like this:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Primary-Card"
BoardName "ATI"
Chipset "RADEON"
Driver "radeon" <- this is the crucial line
EndSection

the "Driver" line in the device section isn't required on older versions of X, and on the upgrade to 4.1.0, X doesn't automatically put in the driver line, so you have to do it manually.

ok... assuming all that works, then you might still have a problem with the glx or shape extensions not being found. if that happens, then you need to add the lines

Load "extmod" # for the SHAPE extension
Load "glx" # for the glx extension

to the "Modules" section of the XF86Config file.

Ok, i tried that, and X still works, but i still get no accelleration.

quake3 is still really really slow-not playable. i wus trying to get DRI to work, instead of just a driver like i used to have installed when i had an nvidia card

i found a pretty good page explaining the ati radeon configuration on X

http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/DRIuserguide.html

if nothing on that page works... that's it. i'm outta ideas.

Yea, I think im gonna get the XFree source-I think you can make a radeon module with that, unlike the binaries. If that doesnt work I'll try dri's cvs. Thanks for the help.

ok guys, i got it working finally-u have to have the source file of xfree86 to compile the new module, if anyone else has this same problem and wants to know how to fix it feel free to msg me.