Linux Mint Forums

Hi,

I'm a Linux rookie, but I love Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon 64-bit so far. I built a retro gaming machine with it and now I want to install it on my main TV watching computer which feeds video to my TV via an HDMI HD5450 1G DDR3 PCI-E card.

The release notes from AMD state:
Distributions supported:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Suite 7.1, 7.0, 6.6, 6.5
Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS, 14.04.2, 15.04
SUSE® Linux Enterprise 11 SP3, 12
OpenSuSE 13.1

I planned on switching over to Ubuntu 14.04.22 to get this working, until my Linux instigator friend informed me that Linux Mint is Ubuntu and therefore, if this driver works on Ubuntu it should also work with Linux Mint. Or at least I should jump on the Linux Mint forum and ask.

Has anyone successfully run this driver (AMD Catalyst™ 15.9 Proprietary Linux Graphics Driver) on Linux Mint or have knowledge to provide me with guidance?

Thanks,
core

Hi stinkfoot70, and welcome to the forum.

Have you tried just plugging it in and see if it works? It's quite possible you don't need to install anything.

Those supported Ubuntu versions are old (14.04 still has some months left) so I don't think you'll want to use that driver. Mint 17.x is based on Ubuntu 14.04 while your version of Mint is based on Ubuntu 16.04.

In case it doesn't work, those that can help will want to see the output of running inxi -Fxz in the terminal. You can use your mouse to copy the output then paste it back here. When pasting large blocks of text, please enclose the results in-between [ⅽode] and [/ⅽode] code markers by selecting </> from the mini toolbar above the textbox where you type your reply.

Good luck.

I'm running a Radeon HD7450. Didn't have to do anything, it just worked. Running Mint 19 Cinnamon. It also worked fine on 18.

Hmmmm....I love these encouraging responses. I tried this over the summer and it wouldn't install on Mint, but I don't remember the details of why. I guess I'll try just obliviously installing in on Mint this weekend.

yertchuk, did you pre-install any of the following to get that to work or did these install as part of the AMD Catalyst™ 15.9 Proprietary Ubuntu 14.04 x86_64 Video Driver for Graphics Accelerators package?

System Requirements

Before attempting to install the AMD Catalyst™ Proprietary Linux Graphics Driver, the following software must be installed:

Xorg/Xserver 7.4 and above (up to 1.17)
Linux kernel 2.6 or above (up to 3.19)
glibc version 2.2 or 2.3
POSIX Shared Memory (/dev/shm) support is required for 3D applications

That's the part that I missed over the summer that's encouraging me to try again.


Thanks,
core

I don't think you understood.

In all likelyhood, what you need is already baked into the kernel.

Just connect your computer to your TV via HTML. Go into your Display Settings and make any adjustments there that you may need and make sure your Sound Settings are set to HTML and you'll probably be good to go.

Did you mean "HDMI" instead of "HTML"?

If so, then I follow and am psyched. I really want that computer away from win 7 and into mint!!!


Thank you very much,
core

Yes I did. Even HTML6 won't be able to accomplish that!

Thank you both!

I'll give it a shot this weekend and let you know if anything goes wrong.


core

stinkfoot70 wrote: ⤴Tue Nov 06, 2018 3:03 pm

yertchuk, did you pre-install any of the following to get that to work or did these install as part of the AMD Catalyst™ 15.9 Proprietary Ubuntu 14.04 x86_64 Video Driver for Graphics Accelerators package?

No. All I did was plug in the board, and move the DVI connector over. Rebooted, and my 2450x1440 screen came right up. I was actually quite surprised ... was expecting more trouble than that!

What do you mean by "moved the DVI connector over?

All I remember from my first attempt at this was that the driver took a ridiculous amount of time to install (hours) and I had no sound after. However, I re-downloaded the driver so maybe it's been updated, and maybe I can dig deeper past the obvious sound settings. We'll see how it goes....

AMD Catalyst involves the proprietary driver (fglrx) and that is supported in Mint 17.3/Ubuntu 14.04.

There are a couple of problems though. First, I don't think fglrx works for any pre 6xxx series AMD cards. Second, even if it did, Mint 17.x is going end of life in April of next year, not far away, and after that no security or any other updates anymore.

If you install Mint 18.3 ot 19 the proprietary fglrx driver won't be supported at all though I don't think it's supported anyway for your card. The newer ones (amdgpu and amdgpu-pro) don't support cards that old either.

So if you have Mint 18.x or 19 you should have the correct driver already, radeon.

stinkfoot70 wrote: ⤴Wed Nov 07, 2018 10:47 am What do you mean by "moved the DVI connector over?

Before installing the graphics card, I was running from the internal GPU on the Sandy Bridge CPU. That came out of the back of the computer as a DVI connector. After the card was installed, I moved the display connector from the Sandy Bridge output to the graphics card output.

That's all.

So Rob, with Mint 18 and a pre-6000 radeon (HD5450), I'm SOL? And I would have to switch to Ubuntu 14.04.22? Or would Ubuntu have the same out-dated lack of support issues where an HD5450 HDMI card will not play nice with any modern linux version?

Thanks for the clarification, yertchuk

stinkfoot70 wrote: ⤴Wed Nov 07, 2018 1:06 pm So Rob, with Mint 18 and a pre-6000 radeon (HD5450), I'm SOL? And I would have to switch to Ubuntu 14.04.22? Or would Ubuntu have the same out-dated lack of support issues where an HD5450 HDMI card will not play nice with any modern linux version?

You're not SOL if you get a working driver that suits your needs. Since Mint 17 is based on Ubuntu 14.04, yes, Ubuntu 14.04 would go out of date just as soon if not sooner. Note it was AMD who deprecated fglrx support, not Mint or Ubuntu or any other distro.

No dice. On a fresh install of Mint 18.2 Cinnamon, I tried to install that AMD Catalyst 15.9 driver and got the error message:

Error: Dependency is not satisfiable: fglrx-core.

Any suggestions?



Thanks,
core

stinkfoot70 wrote: ⤴Sat Nov 10, 2018 12:05 pm No dice. On a fresh install of Mint 18.2 Cinnamon, I tried to install that AMD Catalyst 15.9 driver and got the error message:

Error: Dependency is not satisfiable: fglrx-core.

Any suggestions?



Thanks,
core

Just stop thinking about drivers for a moment. I'm not exactly sure of your goal here. Have you tried just hooking up the TV to the computer with an HDMI cable? Does it work? Does the TV show up in your Display settings in the Menu? What is the output of running xrandr in the terminal? What is the output of running inxi -G in the terminal?

You're right about me shutting up about drivers!

The screen was blown out (to where I had to hunt off screen to find the start and bottom bar buttons) and there was no sound, so I assumed that was dependent on the driver.

After your last reply, I changed the resolution to 1360x768 so that the screen fit on my TV and found the option in sound settings to HDMI sound. It's working and I didn't need that confounded driver.

One new problem tho. The internet connection on this computer is very slow and it should be the fastest in the house since it's directly hooked to the pipe (the only computer in the house that's etherneted to my modem - every other computer and device is wireless).

I pulled up the connection icon from the bottom left corner of the screen and clicked the wired button to initiate internet connection. This is my first linux mint build that's not wireless. Are there additional settings I'm missing?

Actually, I think that internet slowness may have an anomaly. I've got a live sports stream going and that's a solid test for my backwoods broadband speeds.

Hurray! My TV viewing computer is off of windows!!!!

Thanks for the help everybody!

Happy to help. Glad it's working now.