Which Driver Can I Install For My AMD Radeon 7870M?

[KenanQHD]

Hey everyone,

I have been trying to install my AMD drivers on my laptop computer. No graphics drivers show up in the Drivers Manager.

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System:    Host: kenan-700G7C Kernel: 4.13.0-36-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.6.7 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3) dm: lightdm Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Machine:   System: SAMSUNG product: 700G7C v: P04ABA Chassis: type: 9
           Mobo: SAMSUNG model: SAMSUNG_NP1234567890 v: SEC_SW__1234567890ABCD
           Bios: American Megatrends v: P04ABA.046.140311.DK date: 03/11/2014
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i7-3630QM (-HT-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 19156
           clock speeds: min/max: 1200/3400 MHz 1: 2394 MHz 2: 2394 MHz 3: 2394 MHz 4: 2394 MHz
           5: 2394 MHz 6: 2394 MHz 7: 2394 MHz 8: 2394 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Heathrow XT [Radeon HD 7870M]
           bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:6825
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: AMD CAPE VERDE (DRM 2.50.0 / 4.13.0-36-generic, LLVM 5.0.0)
GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 17.2.8 Direct Rendering: Yes

Previously, I tried to install the AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 15.12 Proprietary Linux Graphics Driver but it says it only supports:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Suite 7.2, 7.1, 7.0, 6.7, 6.6, 6.5
Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS, 14.04.2, 14.04.3, 15.04, 15.10
SUSE® Linux Enterprise 11 SP3, 12
OpenSuSE 13.1

No mention of Linux Mint. I downloaded it anyway and tried to install it to see what would happen. After installing and rebooting, my computer would just turn to a black screen with the cursor blinking at the top left part of the screen. As a result, I uninstalled it and now my computer works again. I noticed under the Graphics section, it says "Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)." Is this an open source driver? Is my graphics card supported by AMD in Linux?

Any help would be great

[Hoser Rob]

Downloading drivers from a mfr's site looks obvious in Windows but not in Linux. They aren't reliable and usually are the wrong versions.

You're using the open source driver (radeon) and that's the only option for that card, and not just in Mint but any distro that uses a kernel etc. as new. AMD dropped support for the closed driver (fglrx) in newer releases. The amdgpu and amdgpu-pro driivers won't work either ... only on newer cards.

The only way to get a closed driver would be to do do a clean reinstall of Mint 17.3 and then get fglrx through the Mint Driver Manager. That's it. The only problem is that 17.3 support ends in 2019 and it's hard to say what your options woild be then.

[KenanQHD]

Downloading drivers from a mfr's site looks obvious in Windows but not in Linux. They aren't reliable and usually are the wrong versions.

You're using the open source driver (radeon) and that's the only option for that card, and not just in Mint but any distro that uses a kernel etc. as new. AMD dropped support for the closed driver (fglrx) in newer releases. The amdgpu and amdgpu-pro driivers won't work either ... only on newer cards.

The only way to get a closed driver would be to do do a clean reinstall of Mint 17.3 and then get fglrx through the Mint Driver Manager. That's it. The only problem is that 17.3 support ends in 2019 and it's hard to say what your options woild be then.

Thank you! I guess I will stick with 18.3 and deal with using an open source driver. My next computer will probably have a Nvidia graphics card.