[ubuntu] 12.04 -> 12.10 Radeon HD 2400 XT issues [Archive]

View Full Version : [ubuntu] 12.04 -> 12.10 Radeon HD 2400 XT issues

smapdi

October 19th, 2012, 01:56 PM

So I upgraded my workstation from 12.04 to 12.10 and apparently broke my graphics driver in the process. I have 2 monitors connected and they were mirrored and in the wrong resolution under Gnome and XFCE4.

I tried installing the fglrx package but it errors out trying to install fglrx-amdcccle saying that it could not find the previous driver. I then tried catalyst 12.8 which failed with this error:

[Warning] Uninstall : inst_path_default or inst_path_override
does not exist in /etc/ati. This suggests that the AMD driver
is not installed, the AMD driver is only partially installed,
or the current AMD driver installed is an older version than the
one this script was designed for. Both files listed above are
required for determining where installed files are located.
To force uninstallation of the driver by guessing where the
uninstallation files are located, set the force option
re-run /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh (this is not recommended).

I thought it had to do with the older drivers not being compatible with the 3.5 kernel so I tried using the beta 12.9 but get the same error.

After trying to force the fglrx driver to install I was able to (somehow) get dual screens working in Gnome but not XFCE4.Things just don't seem right. For example the driver listed under System Settings -> Details -> Graphics says "Unknown".

Any help in how I could fix this would be greatly appreciated.

AntiKris

October 19th, 2012, 02:21 PM

If you're getting Unity at all, you're a step ahead of the pack. The only useful thing I can tell you right now is that the official AMD Release doesn't support older cards like the 2400 (or in my case, the 2600xt). A lot of people in this situation. I'd have to say that they dropped the ball on this particular issue, as a lot of people won't have a clue where to even start. Good luck!

2F4U

October 19th, 2012, 02:31 PM

smapdi

October 19th, 2012, 02:50 PM

Not sure if this is helpful to you guys, but there is a repository, which has AMD drivers for older cards that are no longer supported by the latest catalyst drivers. The ppa claims that the drivers can be used with 12.10:

https://launchpad.net/~makson96/+archive/fglrx

Thanks for the link. It looks like it would work but, sadly, I get this when trying to install the fglrx-legacy package

Preparing to replace fglrx-legacy 2:8.97.100.3-makson3~ppa3 (using .../fglrx-legacy_2%3a8.97.100.3-makson3~ppa3_i386.deb) ...

[Warning] Uninstall : inst_path_default or inst_path_override
does not exist in /etc/ati. This suggests that the AMD driver
is not installed, the AMD driver is only partially installed,
or the current AMD driver installed is an older version than the
one this script was designed for. Both files listed above are
required for determining where installed files are located.
To force uninstallation of the driver by guessing where the
uninstallation files are located, set the force option
re-run /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh (this is not recommended).

dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/fglrx-legacy_2%3a8.97.100.3-makson3~ppa3_i386.deb (--unpack):
subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
rm: cannot remove `/etc/X11/xorg.conf': No such file or directory
dpkg: error while cleaning up:
subprocess new post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/fglrx-legacy_2%3a8.97.100.3-makson3~ppa3_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Any idea how to fix this?

smapdi

October 22nd, 2012, 02:00 PM

snoek09

November 4th, 2012, 10:20 AM

Thank you!
The PPA drivers are now working with my ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200.

Mark Phelps

November 4th, 2012, 08:01 PM

Just so you all know ... Catalyst 12.6 is the LAST version of AMD drivers that works with the now LEGACY HD 2x/3x/4x series of cards. This is true in MS Windows as well.

You should also note that, when installing from this ppa, the code downgraded your X-server to 1.12 -- as the version 1.13 that is distributed with Ubuntu 12.10 does NOT work with the drivers with these Legacy cards.

So, if you go an update your X-server in a future update, that will "break" your video drivers!

webgoddess

December 13th, 2012, 01:29 AM

OK, I got my install issue resolved. Just in case anyone else has a similar error when installing the fglrx driver. Do the following:

sudo apt-get purge fglrx-amdcccle-legacy fglrx-legacy-dev fglrx-legacy
sudo rm -R /usr/lib/fglrx
sudo rm -R /usr/share/ati

Once I did those 3 steps I was able to install the legacy driver without any errors.

Also, the author of the PPA has updated the drivers.

thanks so much for the fix, this actually worked :D i was afraid i might have to reinstall linux which i didn't want to do. hopefully i'll have a new video card before i need to install Xorg 1.13 or later (unless they fix Xorg to be compatible again)

webgoddess

December 22nd, 2012, 01:57 PM

everything worked fine for a while but then after a reboot now it doesn't work anymore...

the login screen shows up and looks fine, but upon starting a session both monitors blank out and then come back up with a blue screen background and the mouse pointer moving around but no menus or keyboard shortcuts work....

as soon as i uninstall fglrx-legacy then i can boot back in to xfce, however i can't set up dual monitors because the generic vga drivers only detect one monitor and clones it

i have no idea where to start to debug this, what is frustrating is i followed these instructions and everything worked great, perhaps software updater changed something? i can verify that i'm still running Xorg 1.12.4 instead of 1.13.x