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I have been booting Ubuntu to 3.13.0-93-generic because the newer releases do not support the RS880 [Radeon HD4250] video card that is built-in on my motherboard.

If I were to install the latest release of Ubuntu, would I be able to use the video driver from my Asus CD that came with the motherboard?

Please see question, "Monitor blacks out intermittently and flashes at random times in 14.04 LTS and 18 Bionic Beaver" if you need more detailed information about the problem I am experiencing. I understand that Ubuntu is not supporting my old video card because AMD did not agree to continue supporting it for another five years, but will my old driver work with the newer release of Ubuntu? If so, how do I go about installing the driver from my CD? (I know a little, but never enough.) Thanks!

I really don't want to buy a new computer just because this one is old. It still works great with the older software on it, but 14.04 LTS keeps wanting to upgrade and I can't because of the driver issue. Thanks again!

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    Usually the CD/DVD that comes with a motherboard is built for Windows or Mac, as Linux drivers need to be compiled as part of the kernel. So you usually can't use the manufacturer-included drivers disk in Linux.
    – Thomas Ward
    Mar 16, 2018 at 16:55
  • Ok, thanks. Yes, I saw that they were all aimed at Windows. Now I'm wondering whether I would be wise to compile my own Ubuntu using the old drivers, but then I would need source code for the drivers (sigh.) Thanks for your quick response.
    – user573739
    Mar 16, 2018 at 16:58
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    The 'old drivers' are typically proprietary - the source code probably doesn't exist in the public domain. (Assuming you mean fglrx - that doesn't build on newer kernels)
    – Thomas Ward
    Mar 16, 2018 at 16:59
  • Thanks, Thomas Ward. I guess I'll have to live with 3.13.0-93 or buy at least a new video card and see if it will work with my motherboard. Not sure I want to mess with that.
    – user573739
    Mar 16, 2018 at 17:01
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    I'm sure that, even if AMD were to graciously give me source code to fglrx, I'd have to hack it up to get it to compile with the newer Linux because, as Thomas said, fglrx won't build on newer kernels. Even if I were to get it to work (which is unlikely) it would be a major kludge. I'm considering this question as answered. Thanks again to Thomas Ward for his very quick and expert answers. Thanks, Thomas!
    – user573739
    Mar 16, 2018 at 17:12

1 Answer 1

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According to the documentation your RS880 [HD4250] is fully supported by the open source radeon driver for both 14.04 and 16.04. I would surmise that you are having problems upgrading because you are using the fglrx driver.

The approach that should work for you is to Revert to open source graphics drivers - options greyed out 14.04 or the related How do I remove the FGLRX drivers after I've installed them by hand? Once you have purged the fglrx driver and reverted to the Open Source Radeon driver you should be able to upgrade not only to 14.04 but also to 16.04.

Typically, the following manual commands will properly uninstall -fglrx:

sudo apt-get remove --purge xorg-driver-fglrx fglrx*

The above is to completely purge the binary blob from the system.

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

The above is to reinstall packages affected by the installation of fglrx

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

The above is to to reconfigure X.

sudo reboot

It's necessary to reboot (or fix up the kernel modules and restart gdm).

Sources:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/VideoDriverDetection#Problem:_Need_to_purge_-fglrx

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  • # apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core <snip>Note, selecting 'libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-xenial' instead of 'libgl1-mesa-glx' Note, selecting 'libgl1-mesa-dri-lts-xenial' instead of 'libgl1-mesa-dri' Note, selecting 'xserver-xorg-core-lts-xenial' instead of 'xserver-xorg-core' Reinstallation of libgl1-mesa-glx-lts-xenial is not possible, it cannot be downloaded. Reinstallation of libgl1-mesa-dri-lts-xenial is not possible, it cannot be downloaded. Reinstallation of xserver-xorg-core-lts-xenial is not possible, it cannot be downloaded.
    – user573739
    Mar 22, 2018 at 20:32
  • @StephenDaddona Perhaps you have a different question regarding a different version? All the packages mentioned are shown as available for trusty(14.04) Did you somehow load xenial packages on trusty? Is the 14.04 reference in your question a typo? I'm afraid I'm not clear on what you are saying.
    – Elder Geek
    Mar 24, 2018 at 2:22
  • I probably should have booted to 16.04 before trying the remove/purge. 14.04 works fine with the fglrx driver, but 16.04 and up have video problems. I tried installing 18 on a separate HDD partition, but it had video issues too, and I'm sure it was not using fglrx. When I have time, I will try these steps while booted from 16.04.
    – user573739
    Mar 24, 2018 at 3:12
  • @StephenDaddona The idea here is to purge fglrx from 14.04 in order to allow a simpler upgrade path to 16.04. I'm sorry for any confusion you may have experienced. 18.04 is not yet under support. Issues with that release should still be bug reported. Cheers!
    – Elder Geek
    Mar 24, 2018 at 13:05