trident

Note
The Trident driver may no longer be available in the Gentoo ebuild repository, see bug #606132. See Talk:Trident for notes on compiling the driver from source.

trident is the open source graphics drivers for Trident graphics cards.

Installation

Kernel

You need to activate the following kernel options:

KERNEL

Processor type and features  --->
    [*] MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) support
Device Drivers  --->
    Graphics support  --->

        If your card sits in an AGP slot, choose your AGP driver:
        (Note: ALI chipsets are typically bundled with Trident graphics cards in laptops)
        <*> /dev/agpgart (AGP Support)  --->
            <*> ALI chipset support

        <*> Support for frame buffer devices  --->
            [*] Enable firmware EDID
            [*] VESA VGA graphics support
            <*> Trident/CyberXXX/CyberBlade support

Firmware

Unknown IRQ microcode needed for Trident graphics support at this time, since the Kernel driver (tridentfb) should support most functions for Trident cards.

x11-drivers/xf86-video-trident is an old video card and old driver. It has no corresponding KMS (Kernel ModeSetting), at least in recent (3.12.21) kernels. Although in some distros (AFAIK Fedora 21) such drivers were removed, to my experience it works without KMS. At least with =x11-base/xorg-server-1.15.0.

Make sure firmware for your model (check available ones in /lib/firmware/trident) is included in kernel:

KERNEL Including trident firmware

Device Drivers  --->
	-*- Userspace firmware loading support
	[*] Include in-kernel firmware blobs in kernel binary
		(trident/<YOUR-MODEL>.bin)
		(/lib/firmware) Firmware blobs root directory

Below is a list of the firmware files needed for each family of cards:

No known firmware files are needed for any particular Trident card at this time.

Driver

FILE /etc/portage/make.confSet VIDEO_CARDS to trident

VIDEO_CARDS="... trident ..."

After setting or altering VIDEO_CARDS values remember to update the system using the following command so the changes take effect:

root #emerge --ask --changed-use --deep @world

Configuration

Permissions

If the acl USE flag is enabled globally and elogind is being used (default for desktop profiles) permissions to video cards will be handled automatically. It is possible to check the permissions using getfacl:

user $getfacl /dev/dri/card0 | grep larry

user:larry:rw-

A broader solution is to add the user(s) needing access the video card to the video group:

root #gpasswd -a larry video

Note that users will be able to run X without permission to the DRI subsystem, but hardware acceleration will be disabled.

xorg.conf

The X server is designed to work out-of-the-box, with no need to manually edit X.Org's configuration files. It should detect and configure devices such as displays, keyboards, and mice.

However, the main configuration file of the X server is the xorg.conf.

You can force the X server to use desired driver with:

FILE /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/trident.confExplicit trident driver section

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "trident"
   Driver      "trident"
EndSection

To my experience quoted config don't works. Last error message in Xorg.log is:

[   218.176] (II) Loading sub module "xaa"
[   218.176] (II) LoadModule: "xaa"
[   218.177] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module xaa
[   218.178] (II) UnloadModule: "xaa"
[   218.178] (II) Unloading xaa
[   218.178] (EE) TRIDENT: Failed to load module "xaa" (module does not exist, 0)

Adding to trident.conf the option:

FILE /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/trident.conf

Option		"AccelMethod" "EXA"

makes xorg server operable.

Framebuffer (GRUB or LILO)

CODE

video=tridentfb:1024x768-16@60

Documentation

Full Documentation can be found under /usr/src/linux/Documentation/fb/tridentfb.txt.

Troubleshooting

External resources

X.Org Wiki