Ubuntu 12.04 AMD driver issues

[Christian Heinrichs]

Level of experience: Beginner

Hello ubuntu forums,

since setting up a UEFI dual boot with Windows 8 x64 and Ubuntu 12.04 x64 I am trying to install the graphic drivers properly.
The graphics card I am using is AMD Radeon HD 7670M.
When I install the proprietary driver with the Additional drivers program, Ubuntu boots with graphic errors so it becomes impossible to navigate.
I then have to use this method to get Ubuntu working again.

According to AMD's official drivers website the graphics card is supported, but not Ubuntu 12.04.
According to the Unofficial Wiki for the AMD Linux Driver the graphics card is not supported.
Additionally to fglrx not working, compiz is not working either.

I ran some tests as shown here and the results are the following:

• less /var/log/Xorg.0.log: No "DRI Initialization Successful." message found
• less /var/log/XFree86.0.log: File not found
• glxinfo | grep direct: Shows 4 error messages and one information message
• dmesg: fglrx entries are present, but I am not sure if they are the right ones
• lsmod | grep fglrx: two fglrx entries appear

I hope you can help.

[lukeiamyourfather]

The official drivers support up to Ubuntu 12.10, not only Ubuntu 12.10 so you could try those if you want. The installer has an option to build Debian packages which install cleaner than simply overwriting everything with no way to remove it later. Also check to see if there's a PPA with the drivers, someone might have already created the proper packages.

[Kevin_Arnold]

Is your Ubuntu install completely up to date? I had to do an update/upgrade to use the latest driver.

sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

Then I updated the driver.

[Christian Heinrichs]

Also check to see if there's a PPA with the drivers

How can I do that?

Is your Ubuntu install completely up to date?

I ran the two commands.
The system is up to date.

[Christian Heinrichs]

Bump

[su:bhatta]

Hi,
Please go through this help page:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Bi...e_Acceleration

Has details of installing Fglrx in various ways.

[Christian Heinrichs]

Please go through this help page:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Bi...e_Acceleration

I followed the instructions of point 3.2.
All went well, until doing a reboot.
Graphic errors, no navigation possible.
So I had to start a text session and type:

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.BAK
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx*
sudo aticonfig --initial

to make Ubuntu work normally with the standard drivers.

Any other suggestions?

After running those 3 commands, the fglrx driver seems to be partially installed.
The AMD Catalyst Control Center now starts up, the mouse pointer doesn't flicker anymore, compiz is working and the test results from my first post are different.
There are still some error messages in this test, so fglrx still has problems I suppose.

[su:bhatta]

I am currently using Fglrx-updates, which I installed from 'Softwares and Updates' and there seems to be no problem (as in section 2 of that help page).

Also, I religiously do section 4( Enabling Video Hardware Acc) of that help page.

Suggest you try that once and see where it goes...

[Christian Heinrichs]

Suggest you try that once and see where it goes...

After trying this, point 2.1 and point 3.2 I get graphic errors, except that I get them all the time now.
The only difference this time was that I installed fglrx with the .run package instead of:

sudo apt-get install fglrx fglrx-amdcccle

Because I don't want to download the driver every time when it's already on the hard drive.

Now I am locked out of Ubuntu again.

[Christian Heinrichs]

Bump.

Please see my response above.
I really don't know how to approach this problem anymore.