On 05/24/2012 09:55 PM, Akemi Yagi wrote: > On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 2:44 AM, zxq9<[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> A digression about the driver on SL6: >> The annoying thing is that every time you update your kernel you'll need to >> rebuild the drivers against the new kernel headers. The awesome part is that >> the driver building process is mostly automated for you, AMD has lately done >> a very nice job of maintaining its driver set for Linux, games, CAD, and >> anything else graphical you want to do really fly on an A8, and all this is >> free (both types of "free" -- AMD opensourced its Linux drivers, so the >> Catalyst package is no longer "evil", or at least not as evil as it once >> was). >> >> I wrote a procedure for the E350 (with some background) that should work >> fine on your A8 on the SL forums here: >> http://scientificlinuxforum.org/index.php?showtopic=415&view=findpost&p=7102 >> >> Procedural notes for SL6 have also been added to the AMD driver wiki here: >> http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Scientific_Linux#Scientific_Linux_6x >> >> The AMD release page is here: >> http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx >> (if not you can select your type from http://support.amd.com ) >> >> Hope the explanation didn't confuse, and that the driver links are helpful. > > ... Or head for elrepo.org and install kmod-fglrx : > > http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmod-fglrx > > It survives kernel updates transparently, so there is no need to > rebuild/install each time you update the kernel. Also, 'yum update' > will update the version of the ATI driver when a new version of the > driver becomes available. > > Basically, it a 'install once and forget forever' type operation. :-) > > In Scientific Linux 6, setting up ELRepo is as easy as: > > yum install elrepo-release > > Akemi A note on this... in our experience there is a slight performance difference between the generically built ELRepo driver package and ones built directly against your kernel header on your hardware. In the case of an A-series processor this probably won't be noticable unless you are an extremely demanding gamer, but on lighter systems like the E-series APUs using them as 3D CAD stations or enabling the desktop eye candy is just a touch annoying without letting the GPU pull out all its tricks.