37

I've installed 11.10 and the proprietary ATI drivers using "additional drivers" The performance of my system is absolutely awful and it shouldn't be. I tried to remove the proprietary drivers using the Additional Drivers tool and it appears to remove them. However after I reboot I cant get back into my desktop properly (the panel and launcher go missing). This doesn't seem to be an isolated problem in 11.XX. This guide covers how to restore the desktop (panel and launcher), but the guide doesn't fix my problem though.

Whenever I do sudo unity --reset it runs through its normal processes until it hangs at setting update "run_key" and never gets past that. I must reinstall the proprietary drivers using jockey-text or jockey-gtk in order to get back to my proper desktop.

Interestingly enough the system performance seems improved while it is in its "broken" state (missing panel and launcher).

I think restoring the default drivers may solve my problems but I cant figure out how to do it.

aularon
  • 105
  • 5
Tyler Bules
  • 373

5 Answers5

73

Try to completely remove your ATI drivers from your system:

sudo apt-get purge "fglrx.*"

Remove your xorg.conf

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Reinstall xorg completely

sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-core libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 libgl1-mesa-dri:amd64

Re-configure Xorg

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Reboot

sudo reboot

You should be greeted with lightdm, this will default everything x the same way a fresh install would.

Rmano
  • 31,947
Bruno Pereira
  • 73,643
  • thank you! also, just discovered that ubuntu 2d under proprietary drivers runs nice and snappy. I dont understand why though. My hardware should be more than enough to handle regular (non-2d) ubuntu – Tyler Bules Oct 17 '11 at 20:02
  • 2
    I also have an ATI, my recommendation to any one using any kind of ATI is use Ubuntu2d! – Bruno Pereira Oct 17 '11 at 20:06
  • 1
    After you remove the drivers if you want to use fglrx again use the official ATI ones on the AMD site. – Bruno Pereira Oct 17 '11 at 20:07
  • thank you all for the help. the default drivers work great in regular ubuntu. Would you recommend staying where I'm at or getting the official ATI ones on the AMD site and just using Ubuntu2d? – Tyler Bules Oct 17 '11 at 20:13
  • I say use fglrx, on ubuntu2d they are smooth and nice, no lags or crap. who needs 3d effects anyways? If you think the standart open source ones are good for all use them, im happy with my 2d and recommend it, doesnt mean it will make everyone happy! ;) glad it helped. – Bruno Pereira Oct 17 '11 at 20:16
  • I had tried EVERYTHING else and this is the only thing that fixed it. Unity is bout as stable as Windows ME – schmoopy Jun 21 '12 at 01:08
  • Great job I've been working on a physical to VM project all day and this was the first thing that went perfectly. up vote for you @BrunoPereira – David Dec 27 '12 at 04:40
  • You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. – Ascherer Jul 25 '13 at 00:59
  • 1
    This worked on Ubuntu 13.10 as well! – karlingen Oct 22 '13 at 11:59
  • Doing this doesn't work for me. It shows the following message:

    One or more files have been altered since installation. Uninstall will not be completed. See /etc/ati/fglrx-uninstall.log for details.

     – motionpotion Apr 21 '14 at 13:58
  • 1
    Note that this removed ATI drivers from Mint 16 Cinnamon for me. Thanks @BrunoPereira! – Ryan Jun 13 '14 at 14:41
  • Edit due to http://askubuntu.com/questions/210976/apt-get-remove-with-wildcard-removed-way-more-than-expected-why --- probably it worked before, but better safe than sorry. – Rmano Oct 20 '14 at 16:42
  • This solution worked for me after "aticonfig --uninstall" failed. – Adrian Lopez Nov 18 '15 at 18:57
15

Remove the drivers, .deb or normal install (if you get a file not found ignore it)

sudo sh /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx_* fglrx-amdcccle* fglrx-dev*

Remove your xorg.conf

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Reinstall xorg

sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-core libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri

Configure Xorg

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Reboot:

sudo reboot

After the reboot all the fglrx packages will be gone, you will be using default open source.

For more information on how to remove / add / replace ATI drivers in your system there is already a very good post with these steps.

Community
  • 1
Bruno Pereira
  • 73,643
5

To remove all the current fglrx packages from your system

If any of these returns errors like file not found or package not found, ignore it.

Run these commands in a Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

sudo sh /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx_\* fglrx-amdcccle\* fglrx-dev\*
Community
  • 1
stephenmyall
  • 9,855
2

Here are the release notes for the driver.

As for their instructions, the uninstall:

aticonfig --uninstall

Alternatively, uninstall can be launched with superuser permissions using the following commands as well:

sh ati-driver-installer-x86.x86_64.run --uninstall 
sh /usr/share/ati/amd-uninstall.sh
bioShark
  • 4,251
0

Those darn AMD ATI crimson drivers! The second time I've tried installing and got some glitch/bug. Luckily I was able to uninstall it fairly easily after the crash / black screen stuck frozen at login.

Was also getting 

One or more files have been altered since installation. Uninstall will not be completed. See /etc/ati/fglrx-uninstall.log for details.

Doing the following worked for me from root recovery shell

sh /usr/share/ati/amd-uninstall.sh --foce

or 

sudo sh /usr/share/ati/amd-uninstall.sh --foce

then reboot.

Zanna
  • 70,465
XeoNoX
  • 1