Back in June of 2005 with the ATI Linux 8.14.13 driver release was a new installer to more easily facilitate the installation of this binary graphics driver using a graphical interface for a generic setup or generating distribution-specific packages (at that time Red Hat was the only officially supported distribution). With time, this installer has evolved by gaining new features and more distributions are being supported through their --buildpkg command for generating custom driver packages. These packaging scripts are now even hosted in the open for more community interaction. With two new driver options that will be formally introduced next month in Ubuntu's packaging scripts for the Catalyst 8.02 Linux driver, the installation process of the ATI fglrx driver on Ubuntu will become several steps easier.
Starting next month with the Ubuntu packaging scripts for the ATI Linux driver, the --autopkg and --installpkg arguments will be supported. When using this new --autopkg argument, the Ubuntu packaging scripts will detect the distribution version, install any build-time dependencies for that distribution, builds the ATI Debian packages (the same as running --buildpkg manually), installs DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support) and libGL package dependencies, and then finally installs the ATI driver packages. The distribution version is detected using lsb_release, the Linux Standard Base package. Using synaptic/apt-get, the auto-packaging scripts will then install any needed dependencies automatically without any end-user intervention. Having the installer automatically use the distribution's packaging system to satisfy any dependencies is great to see, cuts down on manually having to install these packages, and is certainly friendly to new Linux users. The build dependency resolution is done by parsing the Debian control file in each of the supported Ubuntu releases.
The --installpkg argument is used for just installing the generated ATI packages (and DKMS, if needed) and is the same as the last step in the --autopkg process. This option would be used if you had already ran --buildpkg to generate the Debian packages.
The --autopkg and --installpkg additions were created by Mario Limonciello with the Ubuntu packaging scripts. As of yet, no other Linux distribution has yet to adopt these changes in their packaging scripts. However, with time it will hopefully become standard among the maintainers and perhaps the --autopkg argument becoming standard to the ATI installer.
The reason for sharing this information now as opposed to in tandem with the Catalyst 8.02 release is that these new Ubuntu packaging scripts are already available to the public. As has been the case since last November, the ATI fglrx packaging scripts are housed in the open at Phorogit (Phoronix-Phorogit announcement). These scripts are backwards-compatible with the current ATI 8.01 Linux driver.
If you would like to try out --installpkg or --autopkg right now, on the next page we have a guide for using Phorogit with Catalyst 8.01.
While this guide is focused for Ubuntu users, at Phorogit are the latest packaging scripts for all of the included distributions (Arch, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, Red Flag, Slackware, and SuSE). Phorogit can be browsed using its git viewer, while to quickly access this repository you will need to have git/git-clone installed. On most distributions (Ubuntu included), git can be installed from the distribution's package repository. With git installed, the below commands will download the fglrx 8.01 x86/x86_64 Linux driver, fetch the latest packaging packaging code, extract the contents of the ATI installer, and replace the 8.01 packaging scripts.
$ wget https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ati-driver-installer-8-01-x86.x86_64.run
$ git-clone http://www.phorogit.com/repo/fglrx-packaging.git
$ ./ati-driver-installer-8-01-x86.x86_64.run --extract atibuntu-dir
$ cp -vr fglrx-packaging/Ubuntu/ atibuntu-dir/packages/
Once the Catalyst 8.02 driver is out, the above commands will not be needed (aside from fetching the driver itself) unless a future update requires you accessing Phorogit for a new feature or fix. The next step is to then generate the Ubuntu packages using the --installpkg or --buildpkg arguments. Below is the syntax.
$ cd atibuntu-dir/
$ ./ati-installer.sh 8.45.4 --buildpkg Ubuntu --autopkg
OR
$ ./ati-installer.sh 8.45.4 --buildpkg Ubuntu --installpkg
As of January 24, there is a bug with the Ubuntu packaging scripts that results in the install package process to not actually install the ATI packages. Mario is aware of this and a fix can be expected soon. In the meantime though, the --autopkg process had worked without fault in our testing on a clean Ubuntu 7.10 system. All of the build dependencies were automatically installed and it had functioned as expected. Clicking the resulting deb files had installed fine, until the installPackages() issue is addressed. One item that the Ubuntu packaging scripts or Ubuntu packages don't address is the automatic configuration of the xorg.conf file. You will still need to modify the file manually or just run sudo aticonfig --initial followed by restarting the X server.
Extending the capabilities of the ATI driver installer to handling the dependency checking is a terrific innovation. This makes the ATI binary driver installation extremely easy even for novice Linux users. Hopefully in the coming months these --installpkg and --autopkg routines will be adopted by the other supported distributions. Installing binary drivers in Linux can be an issue for many users, as you can see from a number of threads in the Phoronix Forums, but this latest work is one-step forward towards a Linux driver nirvana.
