ATI R200 + XFree86 4.x mini-HOWTO
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# 3.2. Problems with Alternative 2

Alternative 2 seemed like a good idea to me when I first started configuring my Radeon. ATI is known for developing good drivers, and I didn't expect this to be an exception, but started to fear problems when I read the information on ATIs website. First of all, the drivers were not supported by ATI, and all they had done was put together "a team of Linux developers" and make a driver. Also, the driver was available ONLY as an RPM package, which doesn't make it suitable for every Linux system.

Installation of the driver went fine, although it might be a little more complex than what you'd expect. X seemed happy with the driver as well, until I started testing things. The DRI extension doesn't work with the ATI driver, it runs its own 3D libraries and it doesn't work with mplayers default video out device (neither did XFree's own driver). Still, this driver has a few nice features, among them the ATI Control Panel (well known for Windows users), and although ATI run their own 3D solution instead of X's, it should support 3D, however this has not been extensively tested.

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