ADM Geode LX700 Video on Slackware

Posted by: Andrew Smith
Poster contact info: andrew-smith at mail ru
Author: same as 'Posted by'
Software: Slackware 12

I bought a computer with an AMD Geode LX700 integrated video card. It doesn't work with X11 out of the box on Slackware :)

I tried using the VESA driver but it would simply kill (blank) my screen, and would put this in the error log: 
(II) VESA(0): initializing int10
(II) VESA(0): Primary V_BIOS segment is: 0xc000
(II) VESA(0): VESA BIOS detected
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE Version 2.0
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE Total Mem: 24576 kB
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM: Advanced Micro Devices
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Software Rev: 1.0
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Vendor: Elpin Systems VGA BIOS
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Product: GEODE LX
(II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Product Rev: Version 6.12
(II) VESA(0): virtual address = 0xb6223000,
        physical address = 0x50000000, size = 25165824
(II) VESA(0): VBESetVBEMode failedc000:0282: A2 ILLEGAL EXTENDED X86 OPCODE!

(EE) VESA(0): Set VBE Mode failed!

I couldn't fix that. But I found a better solution, and it's not too hard to set it up. What you need to do is find the debian webpage for the xserver-xorg-video-amd package. On the bottom of that page there is a link to the original source for the package, that's the one you want. The one I used was called xserver-xorg-video-amd_2.7.6.5+git20070802.orig.tar.gz

Adter you download that, run the following commands in the directory where it is:
tar xvzf xserver-xorg-video-amd_2.7.6.5+git20070802.orig.tar.gz
cd xserver-xorg-video-amd-2.7.6.5+git20070802
./autogen
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
su
#enter root password
make install
ldconfig

That --prefix=/usr is important so the modules get installed in the right place. Obviously you shouldn't see any errors after any of the commands above.

Now run xorgconfig and do what you would normally do, except select VESA (option 0) in the list of video drivers.

Then edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and replace vesa with amd so it looks like this:
# Device configured by xorgconfig:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "* Generic VESA compatible"
    Driver      "amd"
    #VideoRam    16384
    # Insert Clocks lines here if appropriate
EndSection

And that's it! I even hear the driver has 2D acceleration.

Enjoy.