Can't get ATI drivers to work from the RPM file, need help

[c0ns7ruc7]

Hey guys, I'm relatively new to linux and I heard that knoppix is an easy distro to work with. I've got an ATI Radeon 9000 (128MB version) and downloaded the nicely packaged RPM off of ATI's website for the driver update. I tried installing it with kpackage and this is the error I got:

<home/dweeb/fglrx-4.3.0-3.14.1.i386.rpm';echo RESULT=$?
rpm: To install rpm packages on Debian systems, use alien. See README.Debian.
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - No such file or directory (2)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
RESULT=1

Installing from the command line returns the same error. I tried using alien to build a .deb package, but that doesn't work either. The command alien -d fglrx-4.3.0-3.14.i386.rpm (thats the name of the file from ATI's website) builds the debian package, but when I try to install it with alien -i fglrx_4.3.0-4.14_i386.deb, it returns this error:

root@KnopBox:/home/dweeb# alien -i fglrx_4.3.0-4.14_i386.deb
dpkg: error processing fglrx_4.3.0-4.14_i386.deb (--install):
trying to overwrite `/usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2', which is also in package xlibmesa-gl
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
fglrx_4.3.0-4.14_i386.deb

Any ideas guys? I could use the help.

-Thanks

[mzilikazi]

Well you could use -force-overwrite but I would not suggest doing so.

dpkg -i --force-overwrite fglrx_4.3.0-4.14_i386.deb
Remember I am suggesting that you not do this but I really have no idea if it will work. If you hose up your install please don't blame me. I used to have an ATI card and always had better luck building from source. There is the possibility of using Kano's script for installing the Radeon driver here:

wget http://kanotix.com/files/install-radeon-debian.sh
chmod +x install-radeon-debian.sh
su
./install-radeon-debian.sh

I also cannot promise that this will work. For example, the nvidia install scripts from Kano work beautifully on Debian bootstrap and Kanotix installations but not on Knoppix due to its strange kernel and perhaps a kernel source problem?? I really don't know.

At any rate my advice would be (in order)
Buy nvidia! :)
OR if that's not an option, install Kanotix as it is Debian SID not a mixture of packages like Knoppix and was created specifically for an hdd install (again unlike Knoppix). Then run the radeon installer script which is included with the Kanotix cd.

As an aside, you will find Knoppix an unruly beast when you try to upgrade it as it was never designed for an hdd installation.

[c0ns7ruc7]

Thanks for the info, i'll give it a try