It seems like forever ago

[Sylynce]

Well Im new to Ubuntu. I used Red Hat for a short while eons ago, but have been using windows for the most part. I finally decided that I need to learn Linux and Unix so I did a clean install of Ubuntu on my laptop (HP Pavilion dv6 w/AMD A6 cpu). Just installed today and it seems to be taxing my system heavily. Im assuming that I just need to hunt for the proper drivers. I know there is a ton of Linux stuff out there, but what is the best place to start? Thank you for your input, even the "smart" comments that usually follow lol.

[tgalati4]

How much RAM do you have? If less than 1 GB then your machine will be thrashing. 2 GB is better. Do you have a swap partition?

Open a terminal:

free

[Sylynce]

8GB of RAM, so thats not an issue. Hardware wise I should be more than ok. 1.6 GHz quad core AMD CPU, 750GB HDD, ATI radeon dual graphics GPU's etc... When I start the system, it gets to the Ubuntu purpleish screen, the Ubuntu chime plays but the screen stays dark approximatly 4 ut of 5 times I start the system. Im currently trying to find a video driver as I think that may be a big part of the issue there. No swap partition I dont think. I did not select the LVM mode when installing, perhaps I should re-install and select that?

[orb9220]

ATI radeon dual graphics GPU's

Specific card? card model will determine how succesful it is covered in linux.
So list the specific of video card model will help.

[Sylynce]

Radeon HD 6520G and HD 6400. I just went through the additional drivers and installed the catalyst driver update for linux from AMD's site.

[Sylynce]

Well it appears that part of the problem is that I was given a 32bit copy of 12.10 and I run a 64bit system. So no that I downloaded and installed the 64bit 12.10 I need I need to find 64 bit catalyst drivers. I downloaded catalyst 12.9 from AMD but that pooched my graphics and I had to start up in command line and r do a driver roll back. I was still getting errors after I succesfully logged into the GUI. Im currently re-installing 12.1 x64 Am I just going to have to live with the fglrx that is embeded in 12.1?

[Bashing-om]

Sylynce; Hi !

Try this. Boot up ubuntu to the desk top (12.04 version: launcher on left side of the screen choose System settings -> Additional drivers; and install the recommended driver from this utility.

just try'n to help <== BDQ

[Sylynce]

Yeah, ive got 12.10... Im downloading a copy of 12.04 now, seems like maybe its a little more stable for my system.

[mastablasta]

the 12.10 has additional drivers untility in software sources (not sure why they moved it there hidden from the users view....)

the 32bit version will also run just fine on such a maschine.

[3rdalbum]

Use the driver in Additional Drivers (12.04) or in Software Sources (12.10) rather than downloading it directly from AMD.

It's the same driver, but a more reliable installation method.