r6xx-r7xx-branch

Here are some instructions in order to try out the experimental branch of the kernel drm driver together with a new radeon (also know as ati) X.org driver which utilizes it. The alternative driver, radeonhd, can also utilize the same drm branch for the same features.

The kernel drm driver should currently provide EXA acceleration and Xv acceleration for all Radeon HD 2000 - HD 4000 series.

How to build

The driver is supported automatically in Linux kernel 2.6.30 and newer, in which case the instructions on this page are not needed. Support is also backported to Fedora 11 and Ubuntu 9.04 which have older kernels.

• Make sure you use 6.12.0 or newer version of the radeon (xf86-video-ati) driver (newest 6.12.2). The R6xx-R7xx support was merged to xf86-video-ati master on Feb 26th, 2009.
• checkout the source for the drm:

   git clone https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/drm.git

• switch drm to the experimental branch and build its modules:

   git checkout -b r6xx-r7xx-support origin/r6xx-r7xx-support

• build the drm modules :

   cd drm/linux-core
   make radeon.o drm.o
   sudo cp radeon.ko drm.ko /lib/modules/YOUR_KERNEL_VERSION/kernel/drivers/char/drm/

This last path will likely depend upon your linux distribution.

• EXA acceleration and XVideo support should now be enabled by default.