[SOLVED] AMD driver & LM16- notebook with HD5470

[WarlordThorvald]

hello guys
As this is my first post here ever, I'd like to say hello to everybody. Now to get to my problem - I searched for it for three days and, before I downloaded LM16, I've had problems with installing drivers on Fedora20, gnome as well as kde versions. Since nothing worked for me I've decided to try LM16 which was recommended by my IT teacher. But well... again I'm having problems with installing my GPU drivers on LM16 and I've literally ran out of ideas what to do. I might as well stick with windows but I want to move on... Linux works much faster for me than W7 and I'd really love to use it as my main OS.
First, my specs:
ASUS k52jr-sx107v notebook
CPU: Intel core i3-350m @2.27 GHz
6 GB RAM
GPU: AMD Mobility Radeon HD5470/1GB

The problem looks like this: I tried to install 13.12 using loooooong method described in http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&p=798570. Everything worked fine, no DKMS error. But when I rebooted, the lcd backlight was gone! I could see my desktop displayed but it was all dark, unlit. I know that my card has got same problems with drivers past 13.4 on Windows (there's a whole thread about it on Guru3d.com). ATI has not released a fix to it yet ant it's been like that for like 9 months: if you've got HD5470m, then you have no lcd backlight past 13.4. Shame on them. But to get to the point: I removed 13.12 and, knowing that 13.4 was the last driver that worked on windows - I tried to install it, but then I got DKMS error again, despite patching kcl_acpi.c, Here,s the log from installation attempt with patched kcl_acpi.c:

Code: Select all

Supported adapter detected.
Check if system has the tools required for installation.
Uninstalling any previously installed drivers.

Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/fglrx/12.104/source ->
                 /usr/src/fglrx-12.104

DKMS: add completed.

Kernel preparation unnecessary for this kernel.  Skipping...

Building module:
cleaning build area....
cd /var/lib/dkms/fglrx/12.104/build; sh make.sh --nohints --uname_r=3.11.0-12-generic --norootcheck....(bad exit status: 1)
[Error] Kernel Module : Failed to build fglrx-12.104 with DKMS
[Error] Kernel Module : Removing fglrx-12.104 from DKMS

------------------------------
Deleting module version: 12.104
completely from the DKMS tree.
------------------------------
Done.
[Reboot] Kernel Module : update-initramfs

And this log is from attempt without patched kcl_acpi.c:

Code: Select all

Supported adapter detected.
Check if system has the tools required for installation.
Uninstalling any previously installed drivers.

Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/fglrx/12.104/source ->
                 /usr/src/fglrx-12.104

DKMS: add completed.

Kernel preparation unnecessary for this kernel.  Skipping...

Building module:
cleaning build area....
cd /var/lib/dkms/fglrx/12.104/build; sh make.sh --nohints --uname_r=3.11.0-12-generic --norootcheck....(bad exit status: 1)
[Error] Kernel Module : Failed to build fglrx-12.104 with DKMS
[Error] Kernel Module : Removing fglrx-12.104 from DKMS

------------------------------
Deleting module version: 12.104
completely from the DKMS tree.
------------------------------
Done.
[Reboot] Kernel Module : update-initramfs

Generally speaking I see no difference between those logs. Remember I'm new to Linux. So if the patch doesn't work for 13.4 drivers - I didn't know about it. Maybe the patch needs to be different? Or maybe I need older version of LM?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Problem Solved!
As suggested, I installed LM13. Everything works now, the driver installed out of the box without any problems.

[Kalyk]

I see a lot of problems with this graphics card.
Perhaps LM13 is better for that as it is more stable and had Long Term Support.
And this post gives some more tips
http://forum.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=126999

[WarlordThorvald]

hey
thanks for your reply. I will try with LM13. Forgot to mention, I was able to install drivers successfully on ubuntu but I don't remember which drivers and the distr. version number, but I guess that doesn't really mean anything now.

It's shame AMD doesn't care about their customers... they told to use laptop manufacturer's drivers, which are 5 years old now (ZOMG), and this is strange since every driver up to and including 13.4 has worked.