How do I get AMD/Intel Hybrid Graphics drivers to work?

Question

On Ubuntu 12.04 my Sony Vaio VPCSE with Intel® HD Graphics 3000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 6630M worked fine with the Catalyst Control Center version 12.6. Also the switching between integrated and discrete graphic card was working.

In both cases, I followed this tutorial.

But it is not working on Ubuntu 12.10.

I tested the tutorial with the Catalyst Control Center from the Ubuntu Software Center, the version 12.8 and version 12.9. Always the same problem: After installation process I am able to boot in the login-screen. But after entering the password for my username, only the background-image appears. Unity seems not to be starting. I am only able to reach the context-menu by right clicking the mouse button.

I also tried his fix, but is also does not work for me.

Any ideas what to do to fix this problem?

Update: Same problem on Ubuntu 13.04!

Answer 1

For 13.04:

Pre-Install:

Three terminal-commands:

sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++6
sudo apt-get install dkms libqtgui4 wget execstack libelfg0 dh-modaliases
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic xserver-xorg-core libgcc1

Additional two terminal-commands for 64-bit:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32gcc1 libc6-i386
cd /usr ; sudo ln -svT lib /usr/lib64

(Note: The second command shouldn't be necessary if there is already such a symbolic link named lib64 pointing to folder lib there. And if there is already a real folder by that name you should ensure that its contents are safely moved into folder /usr/lib and then delete --now empty-- folder /usr/lib64 before executing this command.)

Download from these direct-links:

http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu//pool/main/u/udev/libudev0_175-0ubuntu13_amd64.deb

and (the older intel driver - xserver-xorg - see also section "Important" on answer for 12.10. I think this would also be very important here.)

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0tTaH4qTIIXdDF3NThFWUtrYlU/edit?usp=sharing

Copy these files (two .deb packages) into an empty folder.

Remove the old drivers:

sudo apt-get remove fglrx*
sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-intel

Execute the following two terminal-commands in the folder with downloaded .deb files:

sudo dpkg -i libudev*
sudo dpkg -i xserver-xorg-video-intel_2.21.6-0ubuntu4_amd64.deb

Installation:

Get the current ATI Catalyst driver e.g. 13.04 (I have tested it with this release) from the official website: www.amd.com/drivers

Unzip the .zip and make it executable. Then go to the folder with the unzipped .run-file in terminal and type:

sudo sh ./amd-catalyst-XX.X-linux-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/raring

Replace XXX with the correct name of the file.

Install the created .deb-files with the following terminal-command in the current directory:

sudo dpkg -i fglrx*.deb

Post-Install:

Enter the terminal command

sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup
sudo aticonfig --initial -f

(Note: If you use multiple AMD graphics cards or AMD dual graphics, you can use sudo aticonfig --adapter=all --initial -f instead, and/or if you use a dual monitor display, you can also use this additional third command: sudo aticonfig --set-pcs-str="DDX,EnableRandR12,FALSE")

Select the discrete GPU

sudo aticonfig --px-dgpu

Reboot your system

sudo reboot

Links:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1930450

My Scripts for Switching

Script for High-GPU-Mode:

#!/bin/bash
# Activate discrete GPU (High-Performance mode), must re-start X to take effect
sudo aticonfig --px-dgpu
sudo restart lightdm

Script for Low-GPU-Mode:

#!/bin/bash
# Activate integrated GPU (Power-Saving mode), must re-start X to take effec
sudo aticonfig --px-igpu
sudo restart lightdm

Script for showing current GPU-Mode:

#!/bin/bash
#Show current GPU (High- or Low-Performance mode) as notification
aticonfig --pxl | while read SPAM_OUT; do notify-send "$SPAM_OUT"; done

Note: If you always have problems after the execution of a Switching-Script, make a restart of your system (and not only a re-login).

Answer 2

For 12.10:

It works for me!! And here is the how-to which I created for you:

Pre-Install:

Three terminal-commands:

sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++6
sudo apt-get install dkms libqtgui4 wget execstack libelfg0 dh-modaliases
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic xserver-xorg-core libgcc1

Optional if 64 Bit - two terminal-commands:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32gcc1 libc6-i386
cd /usr ; sudo ln -svT lib /usr/lib64

Download from this direct-link: https://launchpad.net/~andrikos/+archive/ppa/+sourcepub/2755647/+listing-archive-extra the files and this two .deb packages into an empty folder

xserver-xorg-video-intel-dbg_2.20.0-0~andrik1_XXX.deb
xserver-xorg-video-intel_2.20.0-0~andrik1_XXX.deb

where XXX should be your architecture identifier (x86 or amd64)

Execute the following two terminal-commands in the folder with downloaded .deb files:

sudo dpkg -i xserver-xorg-video-intel*.deb
sudo dpkg-reconfigure Xorg

Then reboot your machine

Note - this is from the PPA: https://launchpad.net/~andrikos/+archive/ppa/+packages?field.name_filter=&field.status_filter=published&field.series_filter=quantal

Important - Today I got a security-update for "xserver-org" form the official Ubuntu repositories which crashed my system again (no login screen). Then I installed the newest two xserver-org-video-intel*.deb's (downloaded and installed as described above) from the PPA https://launchpad.net/~andrikos/+archive/ppa/+packages?field.name_filter=&field.status_filter=published&field.series_filter=quantal again. You can also add this PPA on your system for preventing this issue. For me, this PPA has too much other packages, so I will do it (downloading the two .deb-files and installing them) manually. An other solution is, to de-select the "xserver-org"-packages if there are official Ubuntu security updates available.

Installation:

Get the current ATI Catalyst driver e,g 12.11 Beta (I have tested it with this release):

wget -c http://www2.ati.com/drivers/beta/amd-driver-installer-catalyst-12.11-beta-x86.x86_64.zip -O catalyst-12.11-beta-x86.x86_64.zip

Unzip the .zip and make it executable. Then go to the folder with the unzipped .run-file in terminal and type:

sudo sh ./amd-driver-installer-XXX.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/quantal

Replace XXX with the correct name of the file

Install the created .deb-files with the following terminal-command in the current directory:

sudo dpkg -i fglrx*.deb

Post-Install:

Enter the terminal command

sudo aticonfig --initial -f

Reboot your system

sudo reboot

optional - fixing the bug for direct rendering on the integrated card:

gksu gedit /etc/X11/Xsession.d/10fglrx

Add the string "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri/" on your 64Bit system that the line finally looks like this:

LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH=${LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH}:/usr/lib32/fglrx/dri:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/dri

Add the string "/usr/lib32/dri/" on your 32Bit system that the line finally looks like this:

LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH=${LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH}:/usr/lib32/fglrx/dri:/usr/lib32/dri

Links:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1930450

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1930450&page=51

http://www.upubuntu.com/2012/10/install-amd-catalyst-1211-beta-driver.html

My Scripts for Switching

Script for High-GPU-Mode:

#!/bin/bash
# Activate discrete GPU (High-Performance mode), must re-start X to take effect
sudo aticonfig --px-dgpu
sudo restart lightdm

Script for Low-GPU-Mode:

#!/bin/bash
# Activate integrated GPU (Power-Saving mode), must re-start X to take effec
sudo aticonfig --px-igpu
sudo restart lightdm

Script for showing current GPU-Mode:

#!/bin/bash
#Show current GPU (High- or Low-Performance mode) as notification
aticonfig --pxl | while read SPAM_OUT; do notify-send "$SPAM_OUT"; done

Note: If you have always problems after the execution of a Switching-Script, make a restart of your system (and not only a re-login).

Answer 3

I have a Vaio VPCSE with AMD/Intel hybrid graphics, too, and I followed your how-to step by step. Unfortunately, when I changed to integrated graphics in Catalyst, I got lost after login just as you desribed. When changing to discrete graphics, it works – but I can use fglrx from the sources for that.

So my only workaround, which I'm not quite happy with, is to use the open source drivers and switch off power of the discrete card using switcheroo. That is, with fglrx cleaned off my system, I type

sudo -i
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

assuming that

cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

shows a + in the line containing "IGD"