What is fglrx and Radeon and why do I want it?

[Alex]

Hi,

I have an ATI Radeon 5700 Series video card and after a recent package
update on fedora15 x86_64, video refresh is very slow. After doing
some reading, I see fglrx is something I need? When booting, these
messages are displayed:

Ignoring catalyst-kmod as it failed earlier                [WARNING]
Hint: Some kmods were ignored or failed to build or install.
You can try to rebuild and install them by by calling
'/usr/sbin/akmods --force' as root.
Started LSB: Builds and install new kmods from akmod packages.
Starting SYSV: This script will check if a fglrx kernel module is
present for the running kernel and modify the xorg.conf to the
appropriate configuration....
Checking for module fglrx.ko:                              [FAILED]
fglrx.ko for kernel 2.6.43.2-6.fc15.x86_64 was not found.  [WARNING]
catalyst DRI will not be enabled until one is found.       [WARNING]
Starting SYSV: This script will check if a fglrx kernel module is
present for the running kernel and modify the xorg.conf to the
appropriate configuration. failed, see 'systemctl status
catalyst.service' for details.

It does appear that it's loaded in my xorg.conf however:

[    36.709] (II) Loading extension DRI2
[    36.709] (II) LoadModule: "fglrx"
[    36.709] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/fglrx_drv.so
[    37.130] (II) Module fglrx: vendor="FireGL - ATI Technologies Inc."
[    37.136]    compiled for 1.4.99.906, module version = 8.91.4
[    37.136]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[    37.140] (II) Loading sub module "fglrxdrm"
[    37.140] (II) LoadModule: "fglrxdrm"
[    37.140] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/linux/libfglrxdrm.so
[    37.140] (II) Module fglrxdrm: vendor="FireGL - ATI Technologies Inc."
[    37.140]    compiled for 1.4.99.906, module version = 8.91.4
[    37.140] (II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Version Identifier:8.91.4
[    37.140] (II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Release Identifier:
8.911
[    37.140] (II) ATI Proprietary Linux Driver Build Date: Oct 25 2011 21:24:13

Do I also need a kernel module?

Is this a problem?

[    37.258] ukiDynamicMajor: failed to open /proc/ati/major
[    37.258] ukiDynamicMajor: failed to open /proc/ati/major

I'd appreciate any pointers on how to properly install the ATI Radeon
drivers with fedora15.

I have the following installed:

# rpm -qva|egrep 'kmod|catalyst|-ati|catalyst'
xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-libs-11.11-2.fc15.x86_64
xorg-x11-drv-catalyst-11.11-2.fc15.x86_64
akmods-0.3.8-3.fc15.noarch
kmodtool-1-18.fc11.noarch
xorg-x11-drv-ati-6.14.1-2.20110525gitfe5c42f51.fc15.x86_64
akmod-catalyst-11.11-1.fc15.3.x86_64

Thanks,
Alex