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After upgrading to 12.10 quantal, the packaged version of fglrx no longer works. I discovered that this is because there is a separate 'legacy' fglrx driver for the HD 2k-4k series cards, but it is incompatible with the xorg server on 12.10.

This is the most current version of the driver for HD 2000 through HD 4000 series cards. You can't use the non-legacy fglrx driver, but you can use the open-source radeon driver if you prefer your WM compositing to be laggy and your YouTube videos to play like they would on a Pentium MMX series:

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/catalyst126legacyproducts.aspx

Usually this driver can be installed in the following way, necessary because apt-get install fglrx would pull in the non-legacy driver:

wget http://www2.ati.com/drivers/legacy/amd-driver-installer-12.6-legacy-x86.x86_64.zip
unzip amd-driver-installer-*
sudo sh ./amd-driver-installer-*.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/quantal
sudo dpkg -i fglrx*.deb
sudo aticonfig --initial -f

If you use a different version of fglrx (for example, a newer 12.9 that doesn't support those cards) then the final command will give you an error no supported hardware detected or something similar. However, everything works at this point and you will get a reasonable xorg.conf:

... other stuff

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]-0"
        Driver      "fglrx"
        BusID       "PCI:1:5:0"
EndSection

... other stuff

At this point you're supposed to reboot and everything will be working with the fglrx driver. However, upon rebooting, you'll be treated to the following errors in Xorg.0.log when fglrx attempts to load:

(EE) Failed to load /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fglrx_drv.so: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fglrx_drv.so: undefined symbol: noXFree86DRIExtension

Some searching around will show that this is a problem with the legacy ATI drivers not supporting xserver 1.13 or newer. (Arch Linux thread) ATI has released a fixed driver for its most recent (HD 5000 series or later) cards, but not for the 'legacy' cards yet. The non-legacy ATI drivers can't be used with the old cards.

What should an Ubuntu user, using one of these HD 2000-4000 series cards, do?

  1. Wait for an updated 'legacy' ATI driver that properly works with xserver 1.13?
  2. Downgrade back to 12.04 Precise, which uses xserver 1.11?
  3. Try to downgrade xserver on 12.10 Quantal to 1.12, which could possibly break Unity and GNOME?
  4. Forced upgrade to HD 5000 series or later card? (Not possible with integrated graphics...)
  5. Some other 1337 action that fixes this problem painlessly?
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My answer in a related thread. Might help you. – Glutanimate Oct 26 '12 at 17:25

9 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

As I have found out (4850 here), you can't via any method install fglrx-legacy on stock ubuntu 12.10, even if you use catalyst 12.6 which supports our cards, because the x server that 12.10 uses (1.13) is not supported by catalyst 12.6 or older.

However, this is somewhat of a solution, that I can confirm works on my machine: http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/10/how-to-install-amd-catalyst-legacy.html

Just follow that (well, uninstall any fglrx you have installed now first), and you should have a better experience.

I should note, you will be downgrading your x server to version 1.12, and these packages are not supported by ubuntu, but this is the closest to a "solution" as can possibly exist at this time.

I hope this helps some!

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Thanks...this seems to be the right way to go if one is willing to downgrade xserver and update all other packages accordingly. I hope that the possibility of introducing other unforeseen incompatibilities is low. – Andrew Mao Oct 22 '12 at 4:03
@AndrewMao In my opinion, downgrading xserver isn't a good idea. If I were in your position (which I am, read my comment to Rmano in my answer), I'd have waited for AMD to catch; there should be an update from them soon. – TomKat Oct 24 '12 at 12:32
Downgrading xserver worked out for me - check unixmen.com/ubuntu-12-10-and-amd-catalyst-problem-solved – PJK Oct 26 '12 at 18:09
I cna confirm this works. At least for now. Hopefully AMD will update the legacy driver to support the version Xserver 1.13 (or newer ones) in the future so we don't have to downgrade.. there will be a point where downgrading won't work anymore because of new features. – Gladen Oct 27 '12 at 10:21
It 'works' on unity. On gnome shell it causes a hang at gdm init. YMMV. To fix the hang, enable networking from safe mode, ppa-purge the fglrx-legacy ppa, apt-get update and upgrade AND remove xserver-xorg and autoremove AND reinstall gnome-shell ... something always got left behind for me otherwise and gnome-shell kept being unbootable. – i30817 Mar 23 at 9:01
up vote 1 down vote

I have a Compaq Presario CQ56, with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250. Tried to use the ppa repository (as mentioned by lienmeat) and breaks my system with the legacy driver.

Actually, downgrading Xserver works well, but the fglrx not :S. In fact, ubuntu doesn't detect my card, son I can't even download the "privative driver" that the OS always suggested me.

In other words, I don't recommend install legacy with the method menciones above, the best desition us to wait for a fix

(Sorry for my bad english, i'm from Costa Rica, my english is not that good as my spanish xD)

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Don't download the driver that the OS suggests. Install the catalyst 12.6 legacy driver that I linked to in my original question, then use the commands to install it. – Andrew Mao Oct 23 '12 at 14:43
@egamboau If using 12.10, just don't install ATI drivers. They've failed on all the systems with 12.10 I've tried. Works like a charm in 12.04, though. The new xserver & Unity are not supported by fglrx, and Unity-2D has been discontinued. – TomKat Oct 24 '12 at 12:35
up vote 1 down vote

If using AMD/ATI GPU drivers: Run the following command to remove them, and reboot:

$sudo apt-get purge fglrx

Don't reinstall them as ATI cards (rather AMD Catalyst) currently don't support Unity-3D.

As to the optionsyou have, I'd suggest #1: Wait for AMD/ATI to catch up.

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1  
I have 12.04, and since this summer I am using RADEON drivers which for normal desktop use, in gnome-shell, works quite well. My card is: (--) RADEON(0): Chipset: "ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro" (ChipID = 0x94c3) – Rmano Oct 24 '12 at 9:49
@Rmano I've used ATI Radeon drivers on 12.04 myself without qualms. But the same drivers fail MISERABLY on 12.10. The reason behinds this are: a. New variant of Unity in 12.10. b. Unity-2D has been discontinued with 12.10. – TomKat Oct 24 '12 at 12:29
this is dire news. Do you know if Radeon drivers works with gnome shell? I had my hand on the "update" button seconds before reading this. – Rmano Oct 24 '12 at 13:47
1  
@Rmano The Radeon drivers (called fglrx) work well with gnome-shell, but not the new xserver. However, I believe that using open-source drivers for the time being should not be an issue. You can do pretty much decent gaming with them as well. Just wait for AMD to release something like an update or patch or for Canonical or other FOSS communities/developers to release something. I too let got fglrx for open drivers to upgrade to 12.10 and have no regrets whatsoever. – TomKat Oct 24 '12 at 17:07
1  
Yes, open-source drivers work fine with xserver, Unity (3D) and gnome-shell. – TomKat Oct 25 '12 at 14:09
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up vote 1 down vote

Open source driver would work for me even considering less perfomance than fglrx, if it had a proper power consuption management.

I have Dell Inspiron 1545 with ATi Radeon 4350, and unfortunately open source driver seems not to manage GPU cooler state. The cooler was always on and running loud, nevertheless the system/graphics load. Once I downgraded the X server to 1.12.3 and installed legacy driver, as suggested by Fglrx on Launchpad (the same as lienmeat suggested us to do), GPU cooler started to work only if needed. Bless you silence of the coolers.

However, it would be great if AMD released legacy drivers supporting newer X server(s), though now I'm not sure they really care.

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Eh, my laptop is this one: forum.notebookreview.com/acer/… Terrible design. Right now i have temp1: +57.0°C (crit = +90.0°C) on the gpu idling with nothing but firefox, about 10+ degrees than the closed drivers, and that's on always 'min' power setting, on 'medium' it crashes sometimes during the first minutes (a process that is doing a mimetype file database). – i30817 Mar 23 at 9:05
up vote 1 down vote

Repo for putting last good proprietary driver : http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2012/10/how-to-install-amd-catalyst-legacy.html

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Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. – fossfreedom♦ Nov 4 '12 at 22:59
up vote 1 down vote

A workaround for this problem is posted at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2073279

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1  
Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. – fossfreedom♦ Nov 4 '12 at 22:58
This thread helped me fix fglrx-legacy install after using the recommended approach above. By doing these: sudo apt-get purge fglrx-amdcccle-legacy fglrx-legacy-dev fglrx-legacy sudo rm -R /usr/lib/fglrx sudo rm -R /usr/share/ati – gare Feb 15 at 14:28
up vote 0 down vote

I have an ATI Radeon HD 4770 and the open source drivers are working quite nicely. I don't know which card you have, but you may end up having better luck than with fglrx and downgrading your xorg. I used fglrx for years and this summer switched over to the open source drivers and haven't looked back.

Granted, some effects in Compiz are slower using the open source drivers. Also, 3D gaming is noticeably slower without fglrx. However, for most of your desktop use, the open source drivers are much easier to use than fglrx, with the added bonus of being actually supported.

(Incidentally, the Gnome Shell packaged in 12.10 works very nicely with the open source drivers, and is much faster than Compiz/Unity!)

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I have a chipset integrated Radeon HD 4290 which is in dire need of fglrx. I think with more powerful cards like your 4770, there is some breathing room for the open source drivers to be somewhat blah and the compositing to still work well...but not the case for my low end integrated card. – Andrew Mao Oct 23 '12 at 18:48
up vote 0 down vote

I have ATI Mobility 4650 HD and installing this broke my unity and opengl. I got things working with this (found here):

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

sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

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

sudo reboot

I hope this helps until there is an official driver release by ATI.

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up vote 0 down vote

Guys If You Have any Graphics Resolution problem.

Just go to update manager-->Additional drivers-->select the default driver and reboot.

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