I need help getting AMD Driver to install

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ZodaEX

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 17, 2004
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Hi! I recently did a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. While everything works well the built in open source radeon driver, I have heard whisperings that if you install the proprietary full driver from AMD, that you would have access to the catalyst control panel and possible anisotropic filtering and other goodness like that. The problem is, when I do into the control panel thingy to load the video card driver, it says no compatible drivers found. So I tried to just grab the installer from AMD's website and that didn't work either. It spends hours at high CPU utilization but never successfully installs the driver. This is my secondary machine with different specs than my sig:
athlon II x4
radeon 3650 512MB
8GB of DDR-3
500 gig WD hard drive

Does anyone have any idea of what i'm doing wrong?
 
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My videocard isn't too old is it? Wow that would suck if that was the problem.
 
Have you tried this guide?
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI

I hate to say it, but when it comes to 3D acceleration and utilizing the full features of a GPU, NVIDIA is the way to go 99% of the time.
But, your GPU should certainly not be too old, and if it is, we should be able to find an older driver for Ubuntu which still supports it.
 
All I can says tread lightly and be careful trying to get an ATI card to work.
Getting the OEM driver to work depend a lot on the type of card and the distro.
Some flat out won't work no matter what. Or if they do install successfully the performance might be worse than the default x.org drivers.
I tried installing drivers once and totally hosed my system to a no boot. I was following the OEM instructions also and it wouldn't work. All I can figure it was a that distro/version just wouldn't work with that card for some weird reason.
 
Hmmm, I was considering upgrading one day to AMD cards, possibly Crossfire. You can grab 7950's and 7970's for pretty cheap these days used. If they don't work well at all in Linux though, that is a big issue for me since I work practically every day in Linux (Mint 15 right now).

Guess I should reconsider. I have nothing against using the Binary drivers from AMD, but if I run into a huge compatibilty issue, well that would suck. I love Linux for work, and can't really let gaming get in the way of that.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
All I can says tread lightly and be careful trying to get an ATI card to work.
Getting the OEM driver to work depend a lot on the type of card and the distro.
Some flat out won't work no matter what. Or if they do install successfully the performance might be worse than the default x.org drivers.
I tried installing drivers once and totally hosed my system to a no boot. I was following the OEM instructions also and it wouldn't work. All I can figure it was a that distro/version just wouldn't work with that card for some weird reason.
Click to expand...

I cannot emphasize that enough what "Righteous" said above.

I haven't installed Mint 15 yet, but in Mint 12 to 14, it's been issue after issue trying to install AMD's drivers into it.

Following two different instructions on the internet-- one from Ubuntu and another from a Linux forum-- I get two different issues with my Radeon HD 6950:
  1. Ubuntu's website - Yellow screen after a few seconds after booting into Linux Mint 12 to 14.
  2. Linux forum - Taskbar and desktop icons are gone on both of my monitors. Gray screens to black screens after trying to shutdown.

I ended up resorting to the X.org drivers instead that came with Mint and it's the only one so far that I've gotten to work.

I don't know if compatibility has improved with the latest AMD Catalyst drivers and Mint 15, but I'm very cautious to try.
 
By the X.org driver, do you mean the open source driver from AMD? I've read that they have an open source version. Of course, if their binary drivers don't work we'll, I wouldn't have much faith in the open source version.

But then again, it may not have the best 3D acceleration, but maybe for the desktop it would work ok.
 
Citizen86 said:
By the X.org driver, do you mean the open source driver from AMD? I've read that they have an open source version. Of course, if their binary drivers don't work we'll, I wouldn't have much faith in the open source version.

But then again, it may not have the best 3D acceleration, but maybe for the desktop it would work ok.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the X.org drivers are open source drivers that have been "reverse engineered" to work with Linux. With anything reverse engineered they are not as fast or efficient as drivers written by the hardware maker that knows all the secrets. And hence the crux of the problem. Hardware manufactures have a big problem with contributing guarded proprietary code to something that is open source. The up side is in the past year or so these attitudes are changing and AMD is starting to devote resources to writing GOOD drivers for linux.
And this is because the computing public as a whole are recognizing there is a good alternative to what ever slop Microsoft serves up. Sadly in the U.S. most are MS cool-aid drinkers since so many IT careers depend on it. But around the world people are embracing linux.
 
From what i've been reading up on, using any card less than a 5000 series means having to use old outdated drivers so I guess i'm screwed unless I buy more hardware but I hate to do this for an experimental Linux build that might not even work out.

Do you guys here think it's even worth bothering trying to get the proprietory driver to install? My performance is good in Half-Life, i'd just really like access to the anisotropic filtering so the game doesn't look so blurry in Linux.
 
I don't know... does the proprietary driver list your card as supported?
 
Citizen86 said:
I don't know... does the proprietary driver list your card as supported?
Click to expand...

No my card is a HD3650, and the driver says you need a HD5000 series or newer. I don't have any newer ATI cards than that.

I wonder if my Nvidia 7300GT is still officially supported in Linux. Works fine in Windows 7. Or maybe I should just try and be happy with the open drivers but i'm not educated in how big of a difference it will make. Is it worth putting effort into getting the closed drivers to work? Maybe i'm making this harder on myself than I should be.
 
If the official drivers say they're not supported, it most likely is not. If I remember correctly, it's only been in the last few years that Linux has actually gotten any official driver support from AMD and Nvidia. Before that it was nothing but open source driver support.

So... that's probably why the proprietary drivers don't work.
 
Private_Ops said:
Just because it isn't the newest version doesn't mean it won't work.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't have linked it if I thought it wouldn't work. :p

There is a problem though: if no future driver with 7300 GT is made, that card may not have proprietary support in the future. That's not really a problem for Ubuntu 12.04 (or 13.04), but I wouldn't count on the 7300 GT working with those same drivers in 14.04 or 14.10.
 
Just dump the old junk. You can get newer cards for 30 bucks from Ebay.

Having said that I just reanimated a friends AMD nforce box using xubuntu and the proprietary driver worked fine despite the chipset being real old.
 
K i'll try getting it to work using the older driver this weekend, thanks. :)
 
ZodaEX said:
K i'll try getting it to work using the older driver this weekend, thanks. :)
Click to expand...

Do that. I know that most would advise against AMD on Linux, but the worst you can do is not try. I ran an HD-7750 on it, and it was hit-or-miss. Unigine Valley worked well, Trine 2 did as well, but CS:Source didn't for whatever reason. :confused:
 
Argh.... I'm a little scared off getting an AMD card now. Nevermind Crossfire.

Well, I guess if I get a newer Nvidia, or maybe SLI this one, I can get more than two monitors connected. SLI probably is a little scary as well though....
 
Crossfire in linux is very, very problematic. Oftentimes it only uses one card but identified and "claims" that it uses both of the cards.
 
I have friends who had a little trouble getting Crossfire 6950's and 7970's going, but one friend also has 6 monitors connected to the 7970's in Ubuntu. He said it was a little trouble getting the drivers installed, but afterwords it's working fine. They also talked about how Nvidia is the one that sucks in Linux, but that could be due to Linus Torvald's rant at Nvidia a while ago.

I'm still sort of tempted by some Crossfire 7950's, or maybe even one. With the price they are, around $200 new I've seen, it's probably comparable power to my GTX 580, but I'd have access to more than 2 monitors, and crossfiring another one would probably be even cheaper in the future.

Eh, I'm not in a rush.. although I could use a 3rd monitor, and be able to use the TV monitor when I want.
 
I have not tried to install an ATI since I had a 5770. IMO, it's just not worth the hassle. Although if you are running 3+ monitors on a pre 500 series nvidia you are going to be in the same boat.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
Do that. I know that most would advise against AMD on Linux, but the worst you can do is not try.
Click to expand...

Really? I made an earlier thread about the cards I have Available for this. 7300GT, HD3650 and a HD4850 and the consensus I got was that either of the AMD card's would be the best choice for gaming. I'm willing to definitely use the Nvidia card if it will give be a more stable/easier to get working experience.


On a slightly different though, do you people think it's worth the trouble of loading the Proprietary driver over the open source one that comes built into ubuntu? I can play games already as it is but was thinking perhaps the textures and performance would be better with the full driver, but i'll take stability over features any day.
 
ZodaEX said:
Really? I made an earlier thread about the cards I have Available for this. 7300GT, HD3650 and a HD4850 and the consensus I got was that either of the AMD card's would be the best choice for gaming. I'm willing to definitely use the Nvidia card if it will give be a more stable/easier to get working experience.


On a slightly different though, do you people think it's worth the trouble of loading the Proprietary driver over the open source one that comes built into ubuntu? I can play games already as it is but was thinking perhaps the textures and performance would be better with the full driver, but i'll take stability over features any day.
Click to expand...

I can only comment on the newer AMD cards. I run the proprietary AMD driver on my main machine w/ a 6950. Absolutely no issues to get it working properly in Ubuntu 13.04. I do get much better gaming performance with the proprietary drivers. I primarily play Dota 2 on linux using this setup. Honestly I've had far more issues with my 650m (but that's probably due to Optimus and Bumblebee).
 
When I installed Linux Mint 15, I had to start it in software only mode, as it seemed like there was a big incompatibility with the open source drivers and my particular MSI GTX 580. Not sure if it was because it has the MSI heatsink, or it's the 3gb model... no idea. But it would hard-lock after a few minutes. Couldn't get through the installation.

Started in software graphics mode, did the same once it was installed, then installed the binary Nvidia graphics, and it works very well.

A big unfortunately, I can't seem to get AA working in any games, whatever the settings are in game or in the Nvidia panel. Bit of a bummer. For people with AMD cards, can you get AA running in games?
 
Citizen86 said:
Bit of a bummer. For people with AMD cards, can you get AA running in games?
Click to expand...

I can confirm steam linux games don't have access to AA while using the AMD/ATI open source driver. I'll find out soon here if it's works with the proprietary driver. Crossing my fingers on it, really want to eventually migrate back to linux again.
 
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