Debian + ATI --> how to

Lot of people are crayig that debiab dos`t work with ati cards.
It works!!
But there are 2 methods.
1.) OSS driver
2.) property driver

So lets start with oss driver.

Run this command to determine what kind of video card you have:

lspci -v | grep VGA

The radeon driver supports R100/R200 (Radeon 7000 – Radeon 9250) and R300/R400/R500 (Radeon 9500 – Radeon X1950) class chips. See the radeon page on the X wiki for more information. The radeonhd driver is for R500 and newer cards. See the the radeonhd page on the X wiki for more info.

For Debian Squeeze and later releases, you will need to install proprietary firmware if you have one of the following Radeon-based cards:

• Radeon R100-family
• Radeon R200-family
• Radeon R300-family
• Radeon R400-family
• Radeon R500-family
• Radeon R600
• Radeon RS600
• Radeon RS690
• Radeon RS780
• Radeon RV610
• Radeon RV620
• Radeon RV630
• Radeon RV635
• Radeon RV670
• Radeon RV710
• Radeon RV730
• Radeon RV770

The firmware in question, id est the CP/PFP microcode, can be installed by first enabling the non-free repository for your Debian release and issuing the following command:

aptitude install firmware-linux-nonfree

You will need Direct Rendering Manager as well as Accelerated Graphics Port support in your kernel, preferably as modules. If you are using the stock Debian kernel, you should already have these. To check for DRM support, issue this command:

grep DRM_RADEON /boot/config-$(uname -r) 

The output should be:

CONFIG_DRM_RADEON=m

If this value is n, then you will have to rebuild your kernel.

To check for AGP support, run:

grep AGP /boot/config-$(uname -r)

The output should be:

CONFIG_AGP=y
CONFIG_AGP_AMD64=y
CONFIG_AGP_INTEL=m
CONFIG_AGP_SIS=m
CONFIG_AGP_VIA=m

Note that you will only need support for your specific chipset.

If you do need to rebuild your kernel, you can find AGP under:

• Device Drivers --->
  • Graphics Support --->
    • /dev/agpgart (AGP Support) --->
      • (Your chipset)

and DRM under:

• Device Drivers --->
  • Graphics Support --->
    • Direct Rendering Manager --->
      • ATI Radeon

Essentially, you need to set your device's driver to either "radeon" or "radeonhd" as such:

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "radeon"
EndSection

There are also plenty of options for the driver too. You can find out about them in radeon's man page:

man 4 radeon

It is necessary to install driver libraries in order to utilize the card's 3D capabilities:

aptitude install libgl1-mesa-dri

Property:

Just open terminal and add non-free to the sources.lis
and type
sudo aptitude install fglrx-control
sudo aticonfig --initial

shutdow -r now

and you should be running with 3d acceleration.