How to install ATI graphics driver in SalixOS

I'm not planning to copy the entire SalixOS user documentation or FAQ's, only what's of practical interest as it comes up. It just so happened that after years of not needing the proprietary ATI driver I decided to play a demo of a new game which definitely requires it.

So now that for once I'ld need the proprietary driver I'm informed on their website that my product, an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, has moved to legacy support. The last driver 9.3 was released March 2009, and sure enough, my kernel is not supported anymore:

"Error: ./default_policy.sh does not support version"

Damn you AMD/ATI, six years ago I paid you £130,- and you want me to upgrade my perfectly good hardware?

If anybody knows how to get around this please let me know.

Things to have

In order to install the AMD/ATI official driver you will require the following:
- The latest driver from AMD found on this page: [1].
- You need to have the kernel-source and kernel-headers packages installed.
kernel-source is not installed with the default OS. You will need to run 'slapt-get -i kernel-source' from a root terminal to install it.

Installation

In a root terminal run the following command

# sh ati-driver-installer-XX.X-XXX.run --buildpkg Slackware/All

That should create two standard Slackware packages, one for the kernel module and another for the binary driver, install both of them using installpkg

# installpkg fglrx-module-XXXXX_kernel_XXXX.tgz   #the kernel module
 # installpkg fglrx-xXXXXX.tgz    #the driver itself

Just to be sure the driver is going to work check the /etc/fstab file to see if this line is present, if it's not add it

tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

Configuring your system

To make the driver work you'll need an xorg.conf file. In order to create a minimal working xorg.conf file run the following command

# aticonfig --initial

And you're ready to go, just reboot your computer and enjoy your 3D acceleration.

Upgrading your Kernel or mesa version

If you upgrade your kernel version after installing the driver, you have to rebuild the kernel module, you can do so with this command

# sh ati-driver-installer-XX.X-XXX.run --buildpkg Slackware/Only_Module

Then install the new package as usual

# installpkg fglrx-module-XXXXX_kernel_XXXX.tgz 

Be sure that the kernel, kernel-sources and kernel-header versions match or you'll have a big mess.
If you upgrade your mesa libraries version you have to rebuild or just reinstall the driver --depending if you changed kernel versions too-- in order to use the ATI's OpenGL libraries needed by the driver

# sh ati-driver-installer-XX.X-XXX.run --buildpkg Slackware/Only_X

And the install the package new package with installpkg

# installpkg fglrx-xXXXXX.tgz

Uninstalling the Drivers

If for whatever reason you don't want no use the drivers anymore and want to remove them just use removepkg to uninstall the kernel-module and the driver packages If you uninstall the drivers make sure to reinstall the 'mesa' package, because the ATI driver override mesa's OpenGL libraries with it's own.

Thanks to: The SalixOS User Documentation Team