ATI radeon graphics

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emorrp1

ATI radeon graphics

Post by emorrp1 »

A lot of people have been asking about ATI graphics drivers recently, so I thought I'd spell out the current situation. Note that the open-source drivers are installed by default.

The recommended way to install **any** proprietary (non-open-source) hardware drivers is to go to Menu > Admin > Hardware Drivers, and click Activate if available. This means don't go to their website, download their linux drivers and ask now what. It also means don't use EnvyNG, as I have yet to hear of a success story from this method. If you know what you're doing, you could use these methods, and they may well work for you, but don't expect much in the way of support if something goes wrong.

If there is no Activate option, with your card is not listed in Hardware Drivers, then there are no proprietary drivers that support both the card and the installed system, so you have to use the open-source drivers. Your card may well be supported on an older version of Mint though, e.g. the LTS release, so if the open-source driver is not good enough for you, then installing the older version of Mint is your only option. Don't try to force the drivers to install, from either the website, or EnvyNG, it won't work, and you'll just have to recover from non-graphical mode. The reason for this is that the driver is not written to take advantage of the latest technology available in the newer releases.

ATI dropped support for a lot of cards back in Feb '09, even on Windows, see http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/l ... linux.aspx for a list, where you'll see they list the older driver v9.3 Again, because newer versions of Mint, or any Linux released since that date use newer technology that won't work with the driver, don't try to install it. Try out the open-source driver for a while, you might find it's good enough. If it isn't, your only option is to install Felicia and wait until the open-source driver gets better.

As an explanation as to why the proprietary driver is so much better than the open-source one, consider that ATI's driver writers have full access to all the hardware specs and strangeness of the cards themselves. In contrast the open-source dudes only have the physical cards themselves to work with, so they're trying to reverse-engineer all the work ATI will have already done on documenting the card. The good news is that when ATI drops support, they tend to release more hardware specs, meaning that the open-source dudes can have a massive boost in productivity, so you can expect the open-source drivers support to rapidly improve in future releases. As such, you should keep trying out newer versions of Mint as they are released, to see it it's good enough for you yet (or until the new features convince you to put up with minor glitches :-)) but if it's not, stick with the one you've got that works.

EDIT: there's reports that the karmic open-source drivers work well on at least the X1200, so if you're caught by this problem, please try Helena when it comes out.
Last edited by emorrp1 on Fri Oct 09, 2009 3:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
Husse

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by Husse »

Thanks - eh, so you have got all the questions about ATI that I thought I'd get :)
Cyborgmuppet

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by Cyborgmuppet »

Update.

This driver worked for me:
ATI Catalyst™ 9.8 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver

I not going to piss off the op by telling how so read the other thread I made for walktrough.
Husse

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by Husse »

A) Use decent language
B) Get knowledge - you have a newer card than this topic is about if you get a proprietary driver to work
C) There are more than two topics in the forum - provide a link if you have something to say elsewhere
Cyborgmuppet

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by Cyborgmuppet »

A) Sorry about bad language. I will be more formal.
Reason I wrote what I wrote was: Yesterday I worked all day trying to get my graphics cards to work and I could find no other info than this post that put me down a bit because it took away a good portion of the hope and the motivation for me to search for solutions. Therefore I was so happy when I got it to work that I wanted to share the info to the others that browse this thread and tell them there is hope.
Reason I did not provide link was that this thread looked like it was made by someone who did not approve of solutions that are not throughly tested . Me getting the driver to work on my rig only doesn't mean its safe for the general user or that I necessarily know what I'm doing. And people daring and capable enough to try it are also able to find the other post.
Again sorry for bad language but I had two hours left to sleep before I went to work, and I did a hasty post. I did not want to upset the op by starting to recommend solutions he warn about or anyone else for that matter. I just didn't think my language would offend anyone.

B) Then I must have misunderstood the topic. I as it said "ATI radeon graphics" and I thought it was in general. My cards are 1 year old ATI4870x2. I thought this thread was a response to the turmoil created by the ATI drivers incompatibility with xorg 1.6
I'm not going to pretend I have a lot of knowledge because I'm an amateur. I'm just happy I got it to work.

C) Note that this isn't throughly tested but its fine as last resort for me. Link to what I wrote elsewhere: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=33924
emorrp1

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by emorrp1 »

well, it was mainly created because ATI dropped a load of cards in Feb, with the 9.4 release, rather than x.org 1.6 specifically, but that's my fault for choosing a more generic topic title, not yours, sorry I wasn't clear. You are right that I prefer thoroughly tested stuff :-) but I also like release early, release often! I think Husse was mainly responding to the language, pointing out that we have all ages of users, from many languages, so please be more careful in future.
saquerocl

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by saquerocl »

I have a Toshiba Satellite A215, with an ATI X1200 graphic card, so I was stuck with Felicia, because of the Xorg incompatibility expalined by emorrp1. The problem I experimented with my screen continously dims. But I was looking for an solution and try the Safe/optimal described in http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=30310, but doesn't work. Bleeding-edge causes a disaster and reinstall. The real solution for my problem I found here: http://onlyubuntu.blogspot.com/2009/05/ ... ds-in.html

I don't know what exactly I do, but work really good. Hope can be useful for any other with this drama.

(Sorry my english, if that I wrote was english! I just speak spanish)
emorrp1

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by emorrp1 »

Yeah, that's basically grabbing the latest open-source drivers from karmic, which do have massively increased support, but it's not exactly newbie friendly, or guaranteed to work.
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jcd
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Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by jcd »

All right!!

Now, there really is some serious improvement in the open source drivers...

I just tried Karmic Koala live cd on my laptop and installed a couple of apps I thought would require some "skill" on the part of the drivers...

So, I installed:
-Stellarium
-SuperTuxKart
-ExtemeTuxRacer

Stellarium ran perfect and smooth! The other two (which I recall having tried in Elyssa and Felicia, and it was impossible to run them in decent speed and without lags) ran well and fast... Only problem was that the graphics were less-than-perfect, and there was an occasional lag here and there. No big deal, but still less than perfect...

So, good news I may say!

I'll try a few more apps when I can (just to be sure), but I think the drivers have reached a level where they are usable for most tasks that I, personally, may need...

(Any ideas of ways to put the drivers to test on my machine?)
farna

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by farna »

NOW I find this thread!! I'm a newbie and installed the ATI driver from the repository for Radeon cards. Naturally, it doesn't work with my Radeon 9600... something I didn't know at the time, not realizing that ATI stupidly kept the Radeon name but changed nearly everything about the chip set (obviously wanted more mileage out of a previously good name...).

Right now I'm reinstalling Mint because the driver messed up the video and removing the 4%#$%^ thing and reinitializing the original driver has been a futile effort. If this is possible please consider a thread with a step by step method of removing recalcitrant drivers from the console. The recovery mode video fix did nothing... nor did trying to use apt-get to remove the driver.

Being a newbie to Linux I was tempted to just stick my XP CD in and give the machine (and Linux) the finger, but decided (after a not to restful night's sleep) that if I'm starting over may as well be with the Mint CD again. Figure I might have to do that one or more times yet. I was having a problem with some Windows program graphics in Wine and thought that maybe the drivers specifically for the card would help. Now I'm looking for maybe a better video card than anything by ATI...
farna

Re: ATI radeon graphics (solved)

Post by farna »

I "solved" my problem by reinstalling Mint from the CD. Didn't have much on there so it wasn't too big a deal. I alos got rid of the Radeon card and bought an Nvidia FX5500 as a replacement. Drivers can now be handled through the "Drivers" window under "Control Panel"... hmmm.... that' not what Linux calls it , but I'm not on my Linux macine right now... you know what I mean!!
DasFox
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Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by DasFox »

I wish you could tell when you open 'Hardware Drivers' what version it was going to install.

Or is there a way to tell?

THANKS
Husse

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by Husse »

Also for the restricted drivers this topic is almost a must read - at least if you do any changes in configuration
I don't remember for ATI now (even if I have a Radeon :)) but for nvidia at least there is a selection of three drivers in "jockey" I think
harrylin

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by harrylin »

jcd wrote:All right!!

Now, there really is some serious improvement in the open source drivers...

I just tried Karmic Koala live cd on my laptop and installed a couple of apps I thought would require some "skill" on the part of the drivers...

So, I installed:
-Stellarium
-SuperTuxKart
-ExtemeTuxRacer

Stellarium ran perfect and smooth! The other two (which I recall having tried in Elyssa and Felicia, and it was impossible to run them in decent speed and without lags) ran well and fast... Only problem was that the graphics were less-than-perfect, and there was an occasional lag here and there. No big deal, but still less than perfect...

So, good news I may say!

I'll try a few more apps when I can (just to be sure), but I think the drivers have reached a level where they are usable for most tasks that I, personally, may need...
Yes I agree - but there seems to be a difference in the 32 bit and 64 bit versions. 

As I brought up in a parallel thread, I had bad luck with Helena Gnome X64: Google Earth works the same (after switching off windows effects) but programs such as 3DMark in Wine perform in the 1-2 FPS range with ATI Radeon Xpress 1100. If there is no fix then I'll switch to Helena Gnome 32, as the compatibility seems to be best. Open-source performance in Wine on Helena Gnome 32 is about half that of performance with ATI drivers in Vista - I think that's not too bad! :D
los7

ATI radeon graphics problems fixed- at least for hd3650 user

Post by los7 »

I just wanted to mention that if anyone is having ati driver issues when upgrading to mint 8 that they didn't have in mint 7 go get the new drivers from ati's site they updated a poopload of drivers feb 17 2010 and it finally allowed me to upgrade my Toshiba satellite a305-s6916 with a radeon hd 3650 video card to mint 8. All the old drivers totally killed my system when I tried to upgrade, hope this helps someone.
Mas Catoer

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by Mas Catoer »

I was about to post a new thread but i ask thru this instead.
Here is: I installed Linux Mint 8 Helena on my machine.
I downloaded ATI proprietary driver for my ATI HD 3650/512mb/128-bit. it is 84 mb executable. When I installed, it end up with a warning that it need a super-user privilege to install, then dropped. The problem is that as a newbie in any linux OS (a few days ago) I 've just known that I am only able to be a OEM temporary user. Does it mean that I wont be able to install the driver? I hope there is a way to have it resolved ....
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jcd
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Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by jcd »

Hi Mas Catoer!

If this is actually your computer there should be a password that you can use as an administrator. In an OEM installation, you have probably chosen this password during installation. In Linux Mint 8 (if OEM installation works fine) the super-user (administrator) password should be the same as the password of the first user. (I haven't really tried OEM installation, but everything I'm saying is quite basic for a LinuxMint/Ubuntu system.)

Now, as you said in your post, you probably won't be able to login as super-user, but you may execute a command or a file as a super-user by using the command sudo in the beginning, e.g.:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update
instead of

Code: Select all

apt-get update
Now, that being said, I wouldn't advise installing the proprietary drivers from the ATI website, unless you have absolutely double-checked that this is going to work for your particular graphics card and Ubuntu version (for Linux Mint 8 that is Karmic Koala).

Normally, if there are proprietary drivers that are available for your system they should appear in the "Hardware Drivers" section in the "Control Center". If you don't see any drivers there, then you are probably better off with the open-source drivers (which are already installed by default). Take care though not to install any "Software modem" drivers should they appear, as they are known to cause problems.

Finally, you may want to get used to checking the Linux Mint forums, the hardware section of the community website and/or the Ubuntu forums for specific hardware issues, and see what others have done and if it worked for them.

Cheers!
Mas Catoer

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by Mas Catoer »

JCD
thanks for the reply.
Yes, it is my 3 month-old PC with the specs seen on my signature below. I installed Windows 7 primarily and get used to it. Then Linux is my second OS of choice recently (still get to learn alot *_^). When I stuck with Linux Mint 8 then I tried also latest Ubuntu it end up with the same thing. Just hate being not knowledgeable he he. But i did see the different between those two as you said. I did not find any driver to support HD3650 in Ubuntu, but I saw it in Linux Mint, it only need to be activated, but I havent connect the PC to internet as I still have some Cracked Program in Windows seven that might get caught when up online.
I did try having sudo attributed in the commandline but when it ask for password the cursor wont accept any carachter type or paste command, all I can do is press enter and cursor down that is it.
Well i will try what you suggest me to do soon as i get home because i mostly spend my time in the office working with my sidekick PC as well as the internet surfing.
I will inform you when i do more mess he he

Cheers!
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jcd
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Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by jcd »

When you use sudo and you are asked to enter your password, you will not see anything while you type but that's okay... (I think this is a security feature or something) Just type the password and press enter...

And by the way...

99% of viruses out there won't probably have any effect on your system if you boot into Linux... Especially if you use a live cd... So, that's another option you have if you want to clean your system... Boot from the live cd, check with google or download an antivirus scanner for linux (ClamAV, Avast, etc...) and then proceed by cleaning the windows partition... (But now I'm entirely out-of-topic... :mrgreen: )

Have fun with Linux Mint!
Mas Catoer

Re: ATI radeon graphics

Post by Mas Catoer »

Yes... It works now.
I Overwrote Ubuntu back with Linux Mint 8 Helena. Connect it to internet with no hesitation.
Open the hardware driver, then Activated the ATI proprietary driver that is listed. It took me 10 minutes to have the driver activated and restart. All work perfect, then all visual effect and animation now is working just fine.

Thank for the help Guys... Coz you also, JCD. Seize my day with my new friend "Linux"
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