BinaryDriverHowto

Revision 12 as of 2005-12-17 23:14:59

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Certain pieces of hardware need non-free drivers. The most common of these are 3D graphics cards. This page shows you how to set them up.

Graphics cards

Identifying your card

Install the ATI (fglrx) Driver if any of these are true:

  • You know you own a "Radeon" card
  • Your card model is an entire number in the 9xxx series, and is equal to or above 9500 (e.g. 9500, 9550, 9600, 9700, 9800), or your card model begins with 'X' (e.g. X300, X600, X700, X800)

  • lspci reveals a card with "ATI" in it

  • You need hardware-accelerated 3D support; bearing in mind that the standard driver does 2D perfectly fine.
  • If you own an ATI card that is not on this list, you already have accelerated 3D.

Install the NVIDIA Driver if any of these are true:

  • You know you own a "GeForce" or a "Quadro" graphics card.

  • You know your card model begins with "4", "FX", or "6".

  • lspci reveals a card with "NVIDIA" in it

Install the Matrox driver if any of these are true:

  • You know you own a Matrox Parhelia-based (P650, P750 or Parhelia-512) graphics card.
  • When you first turn the computer on you see a flashing logo with Matrox.

  • lspci | grep -i matrox reveals a card "MGA XXX" where XXX is G650, G750 or Parhelia.

ATI (fglrx) Graphics Card

see ["BinaryDriverHowto/ATI"]

NVIDIA Graphics Card

see ["BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia"]

Matrox (Parhelia-based) Graphics Card

see ["BinaryDriverHowto/MatroxParhelia"]

Other hardware

see ["BinaryDriverHowto/SmartLinkModem"]

Keyspan driver

see ["BinaryDriverHowto/KeyspanDriver"]

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