How do I enable "3rd party" drivers?

[Edgeman]

Have to believe that's the core of my AMD video card problem...no native drivers in Linux. When I loaded Linux Mint Cinnamon, I selected the option to only load Linux drivers. I've poked around my system settings, and can't find the process to allow that, so it's pretty clear this newbie just doesn't know where to look.

I'm running in compatibility mode now, so what's the worst that can happen? (fingers crossed...lol)

TIA!

[DAMIEN1307]

in your "menu", look for driver manager or driver update manager and click it and let it search...see what it comes up with...DAMIEN

[Pjotr]

As Damien says. If Driver Manager doesn't show any available proprietary drivers, you're in luck: no need to do anything, everything is already for the best.

[Mark Phelps]

Have to believe that's the core of my AMD video card problem...no native drivers in Linux. ..

Unfortunately, depending the model of your AMD card, there simply may be no drivers for it.

AMD used to provide a driver known as fglrx -- but they stopped supporting that some time ago.

Then, they came along with AMDGPU -- but that only works for a very limited set of cards.

These days, most folks are relegated to using the default, open-source drivers, which are installed by default.

[Pjotr]

Have to believe that's the core of my AMD video card problem...no native drivers in Linux. ..

These days, most folks are relegated to using the default, open-source drivers, which are installed by default.

... and which perform quite fine, in most cases.

[Edgeman]

My video card is currently doing its best imitation of a rock. The only way it runs on this newly built computer is in "Recovery Mode." Not an expert, but I think that cuts out the Linux video driver.

The only options with the Driver Manager are for proprietary drivers, which there are none. Once again I ask, how do I enable my Linux software to consider 3rd party driver options?

[Edgeman]

To follow up, I'm looking in the "Hardware Support"/"Graphics Cards and Monitors" sections, and it states:

"If your card is listed as GCN 1st gen, your card is considered NOT on the list below. If it is 2nd gen or greater, it is consider ON the list."

"For desktops:

For desktops we get better options, but AMD made great confusion as there is only a select numbers of cards supported by their new drivers.
The list of cards for the new drivers:
Radeon RX 5xx graphics
Radeon™ RX 480 Graphics
​Radeon™ RX 470 Graphics
​Radeon™ RX 460 Graphics
(and a bunch more...)

I have a Radeon RX 590 card (i.e. 5XX), so I should be correct in assuming my card is in fact, on the list.

In the system settings, next to two "Graphics card" entries, it reads:
Intel Corporation Device 3e98 (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480]

I think I'm running on the first in basic VGA mode, and my actual video card is on the second line.

I don't need the latest and greatest driver ever written, I just need something that works with this card...even something that just provides basic functions with this card, so how do I enable "3rd party" drivers? I would be happy with a driver for a RX 470 or 480. I just need something that works. Anything that works!

Thanks!

[Edgeman]

For reference, I'm also running Win10 on this machine (different hard drives to keep them completely separate), so I've determined the video card is fully functional.

Once again, how do I either (a) enable 3rd party (i.e. AMD) drivers, or (b) how do I upload a non-native (i.e. an AMD) driver into Linux?

TIA! (Thanks In Advance!)

[Hoser Rob]

... in the system settings, next to two "Graphics card" entries, it reads:
Intel Corporation Device 3e98 (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480]

I think I'm running on the first in basic VGA mode, and my actual video card is on the second line....

You need to post more info, copy/paste this to the terminal and copy/paste the text output here (no screenshots please):

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

However I suspect you do have an ATI rx 470/480, and according to this ...

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

... you need the open source amdgpu driver, which should be already installed. There's no other Linux driver for this card in recent Linux releases.