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I know I'm not the first one to have trouble with amd drivers, but no post gave me an answer for my situation (not even this one).

I have a Dell Inspiron 3537 with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64-bit installed on dual-boot (along with Windows 8.1 64bit).

The computer has two graphic cards, an intel one and an amd one. However, Ubuntu isn't using the AMD one. Or maybe it is. I dunno, it's very confusing.

The output of lspci -v | grep VGA is:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Venus PRO [Radeon HD 8850M] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)

So it's there, right? Addition Drivers also says I'm using AMD:

enter image description here

Trying to install fglrx and using that instead (see above options) results in a low-graphics mode on reboot. Every time. So I remove fglrx and everything goes back to normal.

I then tried installing the latest driver straight from amd. No luck there either - after running the installer, I get this message:

enter image description here

So I digged a little deeper. What could be wrong? The driver is supposedly fro Xorg 6.9 and up. So I did Xorg -version and got this:

X.Org X Server 1.15.1
Release Date: 2014-04-13
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 3.2.0-61-generic x86_64 Ubuntu
Current Operating System: Linux yuvi-zefoPC 3.13.0-35-generic #62-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 15 01:58:42 UTC 2014 x86_64
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-35-generic.efi.signed root=UUID=e702db78-eac6-4e2a-95ec-1bac547b60f3 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
Build Date: 30 July 2014  12:21:54AM
xorg-server 2:1.15.1-0ubuntu2.1 (For technical support please see http://www.ubuntu.com/support) 
Current version of pixman: 0.30.2
    Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
    to make sure that you have the latest version.

Wait, 1.15? Isn't that an extremely old version? Or maybe I'm reading this wrong? Anyway. I'm busting my head here. No solution seems to be helping, and I just can't tell what's wrong. The driver I got was exactly the one for my driver, but it won't install because... it can't find it? What?

Please help. Thanks in advanced.

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yuvi
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3 Answers3

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Add a kernel boot parameter by editing the configuration file for GRUB.

sudo -H gedit /etc/default/grub

Add radeon.runpm=0 in

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

The final line will look like

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash radeon.runpm=0"

Then run sudo update-grub. Now you can install ati*.run

Zanna
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Jason Zhang
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  • sadly I no longer have the computer. It belonged to the company, and I stopped working there a month ago. However, thank you for your answer, I do hope it helps someone along the way (and if someone confirms this as a working solution, I will mark it as correct) – yuvi Jan 17 '15 at 14:04
  • This worked for me, what does radeon.runpm=0 do on the grub menu? – lfzawacki Aug 17 '15 at 17:42
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You are confusing the various modules of Xorg.

See https://wiki.debian.org/Xorg and http://who-t.blogspot.com/2009/10/x11r75-released-but-what-is-it.html and What is the X version in 12.04?

You are looking at the version of X Server, which is 1.15.1

Your version of xorg, however, is 7.x

You are using an old video card that is no longer supported by ATI. If the open source driver does not work you are almost certainly out of luck as it is not going to be easy, if it is even possible, to use 6.9 . You would almost certainly have to build a custom kernel and then all of Xorg from source code.

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Panther
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  • Wow, build a custom kernel?? It supposedly supports 6.9 or newer (so even a 7.X version should be supported). When you say this video card is old, why do you say that?

    As for the the open-source - the wrapper (the one in the image) works, but then the system seems to rely on the Intel card for most heavy-lifting jobs. I'm trying to make a game installed through Steam (Witcher 2, which was recently released with linux support) work, but it always uses the Intel driver and crashes (because it isn't strong enough). I asked on the steam forums and they keep telling me to install fglrx

     – yuvi Sep 19 '14 at 20:22
  • I also tried installing this but it told me that "No AMD / ATi Graphics Display Controller detected"... Why?? – yuvi Sep 19 '14 at 20:23
  • What do you mean by "it" ? the error message clearly states your graphics driver is not supported. You would need a custom kernel for Xorg 6.9 as the kernel is what drives the hardware. Xorg 6.9 is very old and my guess would be not supported by a stock ubuntu kernel. – Panther Sep 19 '14 at 20:25
  • I downloaded this driver and ran the installer. That's what gave me the "Your graphics adapter is not supported by thi driver" error in the post above. The site specifically mentions that the driver is "for Xorg/Xserver 6.9 and above" – yuvi Sep 19 '14 at 20:35
  • Again , the error message clearly states your video card is not supported. You would need to file a bug report with ATI. – Panther Sep 19 '14 at 20:39
  • Oh ok. I was thinking it was maybe not identifying it correctly. I will file a report then... how disappointing :-( – yuvi Sep 19 '14 at 20:41
  • Where do I do that though? The first thing you find when you google "ATI bug report" is an unofficial website – yuvi Sep 19 '14 at 20:45
  • That is the place. Take note, when I filed a bug report there, it was deleted. You might wish to purchase Linux compatible hardware in the future. – Panther Sep 19 '14 at 20:53
  • Well, I didn't know Steam would bring the revolution so fast. Ubuntu is mostly for work-stuff (why do you think I keep the dual boot at all?). I'm just hoping to get rid of dual-boot entirely... – yuvi Sep 19 '14 at 20:56
  • If you want to "get rid of windows", next time go with a system with Linux pre-installed. There are several vendors available. This way Linux "just works". Just for fun, try to install windows on such a box ;) – Panther Sep 19 '14 at 21:00
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you have an ati radeon graphic card. Your card is very recent, just follow instruction of those links. or http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/radeon

hermest
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  • That page is (a) in french, which I do not speak (translating it with chrome, but still) and also (b) contains a lot of information, most of which doesn't seem relevant. Can you try giving me a more concise answer? Thanks! – yuvi Sep 19 '14 at 20:33
  • I agree, links are normally discouraged. Best to translate and copy/paste the general advice from that link here, with attribution of course. Speaking of old, that link is 2 years old. – Panther Sep 19 '14 at 20:36
  • @yuvi The general gist of the link if to use the xedgers ppa or compile from source. See https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa – Panther Sep 19 '14 at 20:37
  • @bodhi.zazen yeah, but why do that? I have no idea what's xorg-edgers (is it like a dev version of xorg?), but besides that, the link you shared here specifcally says that "beware that fglrx does not support it yet!" which is the opposite of what I'm trying to achieve... – yuvi Sep 19 '14 at 20:40
  • @yuvi - You are asking me about advice Brice gave you, ask him. I merely gave you an english translation. My advice is to file a bug report with ATI as it is their driver is closed source and as such, if ATI does not support their own card, we really can not help. – Panther Sep 19 '14 at 20:42