Alternative 1 is by far the simplest and safest way to set up your Radeon if you use XFree 4.2.x. On the other hand, this works ONLY in XFree 4.2.x, and I also found that video playback wouldn't work with the X11/Xv video out device im mplayer (which is the best and default video out device to use if you're running mplayer in X). Also, this driver only supports 2D (meaning DRI won't work).