I'm running Ubuntu 20.04 and I have a radeon hd 5830 GPU (I know, it's old). The open source radeon driver is working fine for regular office/web use but it looks like I need the proprietary drivers for gaming. I'm aware of similar threads here, here, and here, but I'm not sure they apply to my situation, or aren't answered.
The official fglrx drivers listed here only go up to Ubuntu 14.04. But the documentation seems to suggest they should work with newer versions, too. Searches for radeon and Ubuntu 20.04 or 18.04 lead to drivers that don't seem to be compatible with my hardware, like amdgpu-pro. There are 4 .deb files for the fglrx drivers. Starting with the "core" file (if I try to install the other 3 first they each throw dependency errors asking for fglrx-core), I get:
sudo apt install ./fglrx-core_15.201-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_14.01.deb Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Note, selecting 'fglrx-core' instead of './fglrx-core_15.201-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_14.01.deb' The following additional packages will be installed: dkms lib32gcc1 Suggested packages: menu The following NEW packages will be installed: dkms fglrx-core lib32gcc1 0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded. Need to get 0 B/82.9 MB of archives. After this operation, 238 MB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y Get:1 /home/user/Downloads/fglrx-core_15.201-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_14.01.deb fglrx-core amd64 2:15.201-0ubuntu1 [82.8 MB] Selecting previously unselected package dkms. (Reading database ... 203959 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../dkms_2.8.1-5ubuntu1_all.deb ... Unpacking dkms (2.8.1-5ubuntu1) ... Selecting previously unselected package lib32gcc1. Preparing to unpack .../lib32gcc1_1%3a10.2.0-5ubuntu1~20.04_amd64.deb ... Unpacking lib32gcc1 (1:10.2.0-5ubuntu1~20.04) ... Selecting previously unselected package fglrx-core. Preparing to unpack .../fglrx-core_15.201-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_14.01.deb ... Unpacking fglrx-core (2:15.201-0ubuntu1) ... Setting up lib32gcc1 (1:10.2.0-5ubuntu1~20.04) ... Setting up dkms (2.8.1-5ubuntu1) ... Setting up fglrx-core (2:15.201-0ubuntu1) ... update-alternatives: using /usr/lib/fglrx-core/ld.so.conf to provide /etc/ld.so.conf.d/x86_64-linux-gnu_GFXCORE.conf (x86_64-linux-gnu_gfxc ore_conf) in auto mode dpkg: error: version '-' has bad syntax: revision number is empty dpkg: error: version '-' has bad syntax: revision number is empty Loading new fglrx-core-15.201 DKMS files... Building for 5.4.0-54-generic Building for architecture x86_64 Building initial module for 5.4.0-54-generic ERROR: Cannot create report: [Errno 17] File exists: '/var/crash/fglrx-core.0.crash' Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 5.4.0-54-generic (x86_64) Consult /var/lib/dkms/fglrx-core/15.201/build/make.log for more information. dpkg: error processing package fglrx-core (--configure): installed fglrx-core package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 10 Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.1-1) ... Errors were encountered while processing: fglrx-core E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
I then end up in some kind of broken state and have to do sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx-core and sudo apt autoremove to clean up. I also tried the generic linux driver listed on the same radeon 5830 page:
./AMD-Catalyst-15.9-Linux-installer-15.201.1151-x86.x86_64.run Created directory fglrx-install.cO4xT2 Verifying archive integrity... All good. Uncompressing AMD Catalyst(TM) Proprietary Driver-15.201.1151...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... # Option “-e” is deprecated and might be removed in a later version of gnome-terminal. # Use “-- ” to terminate the options and put the command line to execute after it. ===================================================================== AMD Catalyst(TM) Proprietary Driver Installer/Packager =====================================================================error: Detected X Server version 'XServer _64a' is not supported. Supported versions are X.Org 6.9 or later, up to XServer 1.10 (default:v2:x86_64:lib32:XServer _64a:none:5.4.0-54-generic:) Installation will not proceed.
Removing temporary directory: fglrx-install.cO4xT2
I would understand if there's really no way to get a proprietary driver for my GPU working on Ubuntu 20.04, but I want to be certain about that before I give up.
