The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

lwfitz · 2012-09-22 00:42:14

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this but after installing the drivers xrandr now wont let me extend to a second monitor its just cloned.

Heres my xrandr output

luke@crunchbang:~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 1600 x 1600
DFP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP2 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 338mm x 270mm
   1280x1024      60.0*+   75.0  
   1280x960       75.0     60.0  
   1280x768       75.0     60.0  
   1280x720       75.0     60.0  
   1024x768       75.0     70.1     60.0  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3  
   640x480        75.0     72.8     59.9  
CRT1 connected 1280x1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
   1600x1200      60.0 +
   1400x1050      60.0  
   1600x900       60.0  
   1280x1024      60.0* 
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1366x768       59.8  
   1360x768       60.0  
   1280x800       59.8  
   1152x864       60.0  
   1280x768       59.9  
   1280x720       60.0  
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.3  
   720x480        60.0  
   640x480        59.9

If Im reading that correctly it says I only have one display. How would I enable the second one?

Unia · 2012-09-22 10:36:55

I use this:

xrandr --output LVDS --primary --mode 1366x768 --pos 0x0 --output CRT1 --mode 1680x1050 --pos 1366x0 --right-of LVDS

LVDS is my primary screen, CRT1 is my external monitor. You'll have to change those values for your specific setup. EDIT: You'll also want to change your resolution on both screens. It would be something like:

xrandr --output DFP2 --primary --mode 1280x1024 --pos 0x0 --output CRT1 ---mode 1600x1200 --pos 1280x0 --right-of DFP2

Last edited by Unia (2012-09-22 10:39:17)

stolid · 2012-09-22 18:55:48

I had trouble getting Catalyst to install properly using this guide unfortunately, but the following script worked for me on Waldorf (after rolling back Xorg of course):

http://kanotix.com/files/install-fglrx-debian.sh

Maybe it will help someone.

lwfitz · 2012-09-22 19:33:36

Unia wrote:

I use this:
xrandr --output LVDS --primary --mode 1366x768 --pos 0x0 --output CRT1 --mode 1680x1050 --pos 1366x0 --right-of LVDS
LVDS is my primary screen, CRT1 is my external monitor. You'll have to change those values for your specific setup. EDIT: You'll also want to change your resolution on both screens. It would be something like:
xrandr --output DFP2 --primary --mode 1280x1024 --pos 0x0 --output CRT1 ---mode 1600x1200 --pos 1280x0 --right-of DFP2

Right on, I wont be back to that PC until tomorrow but I will test that then and get back to you. I appreciate the help.

zenitraM · 2012-11-04 22:59:03

After too much fiddling with smxi to get AMD VAAPI video acceleration to work, I found out another way to install the last fglrx drivers.

Just add the "experimental" repositories to sources.list (nothing will be updated from them by default). Then force apt to install fgrlx-driver from them by just running:

apt-get install -t experimental fglrx-driver

This way all of the fglrx-driver dependencies will be pulled off the experimental branch (which I think has the same driver version that smxi installs by default), and you can install all xvba-related packages without having the old fgrlx-driver dragged in by its dependencies.

M.I.H.H · 2012-11-07 08:57:43

thank you very much.
this guide so helpfull.

august · 2012-11-24 00:29:53

I've got a laptop with a HD 4250 and I've taken el_koraco's advice and installed Ubuntu 12.04 and fglrx from the repo. The DE animations are a bit chunky and glitchy looking but it's a price I'm willing to pay for a non-Windows operating system that also isn't trying to burn my laptop into slag.

I don't know much about drivers and kernels, however, and I was wondering if I could get any added benefit from pulling down a later kernel as I see occasional headlines about the kernel getting better support for ATI cards. I tried adding the Liquorix repo and puled down his current version of 3.6 but it make Unity look weird and Cinamonn fails into Gnome Fallback. Should I keep tracking the repo to see what 3.7 yeilds, get a newer kernel eslewhere, or just accept 12.04's kernel and a mildly ugly desktop?

Last edited by august (2012-11-24 00:36:43)

el_koraco · 2012-11-24 00:43:21

The improvements you hear being talked about are for the open source drivers. I'm not even sure Catalyst 12.4 supports newer kernels, as evidenced by your glitches. None of this will be bugfixed, so things are only gonna get worse. Start preparing to buy a new computer really big_smile

august · 2012-11-24 01:07:14

Ah well, at least I've got ~4.5 years to save the money! tongue

I think ATI implied that they might release yearly or quarterly updates to the legacy cards but I ain't gonna hold my breath.

el_koraco · 2012-11-24 01:11:42

I wouldn't either. Try another DE, the Compiz compositing in Ubuntu has always been sketchy.

august · 2012-11-24 01:25:34

el_koraco wrote:

I wouldn't either. Try another DE, the Compiz compositing in Ubuntu has always been sketchy.

Cinnamon is actually working pretty well if I give it an alt+f2 after boot but I'm willing to give something else a try. I'm guessing Unity/Cinnamon/Gnome shell all use compiz? So I'd be looking at maybe LXDE or Xfce?

el_koraco · 2012-11-24 09:37:38

Only Unity uses comiz. Cinnamon and GS use Mutter. LXDE doesn't have compositing, it uses openbox as the window manager.

smoki · 2012-11-24 11:03:34

Ubuntu and Mint are all about strange forks tongue . I think noone sane uses want to use compiz today, just Ubuntu's Unity.

Btw cinnamon uses muffin wm, fork of mutter smile .

Skillz-404 · 2012-12-02 17:10:57

At the installation of the driver i choose the first option and click continue. It pops a message saying ""one or more tools required for installation cannot be found on the system. install the required tools before installing the fglrx driver. optionally, run the installer with --force option to install without the tools. forcing install will dissable AMD hardware acceleration and may make yourr system unstable, not reccommended.
see /usr/share/ati/fglrx-install.log ffor more details

Unia · 2012-12-02 17:26:13

Well, did you open that fglrx-install.log file for more details?

Skillz-404 · 2012-12-02 18:25:22

Nah, I just ran it with --force. It made the installation work. And I have my HDMI sound back, which is why I wanted to install the driver in the first place - but now I cant seem to get dual screen back, its clones. Heres the details.

xrandr:

vikt0r@CrunchBang:~$ xrandr 
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 1920 x 1920
DFP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP4 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP5 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP6 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP7 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP8 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP9 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 476mm x 268mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+   59.9     30.0     30.0  
   1776x1000      59.9     30.0  
   1680x1050      60.0     59.9  
   1400x1050      60.0     59.9  
   1600x900       59.9  
   1360x1024      60.0     59.9  
   1280x1024      60.0     59.9  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x960       59.9  
   1280x768       59.9  
   1280x720       60.0     59.9  
   1024x768       75.0     70.1     60.0  
   1152x648       59.9  
   800x600        75.0     60.3  
   720x480        30.0     60.0     30.0     59.9  
   640x480        75.0     60.0     59.9  
DFP10 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DFP11 connected 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 476mm x 268mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+
   1680x1050      60.0  
   1400x1050      60.0  
   1600x900       60.0  
   1360x1024      60.0  
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1440x900       59.9  
   1280x960       60.0  
   1280x800       59.8  
   1152x864       60.0     75.0  
   1280x768       59.8  
   1280x720       60.0  
   1024x768       75.0     70.1     60.0  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   640x480        75.0     67.0     59.9  
CRT1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

So I use:

vikt0r@CrunchBang:~$ xrandr ---output DFP9 --mode 1920x1080 --pos 0x0 --left-of DFP11 --primary --output DFP11 --mode 1920x1080 --pos 1920x0

and get:

xrandr: screen cannot be larger than 1920x1920 (desired size 3840x1080)

any suggestions???

EDIT*************
I played around with the display settings and determined the cause of the problem. Its setting the maximum resolution of Screen 0 to 1920 by 1920. so the only way I wan do 2 screens is using a below setting making the screens stack ontop of each other. Even with that it stacks 240 pixels because 1080 * 2 = 2160 which is larcer than 1920.
So I either need to make the max resolution 3840x1080 or ... no idea...
Does anyone have a clue on how to change the max resolution of a screen??

ex:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, [b][u]maximum 1920 x 1920[/u][/b]

Last edited by Skillz-404 (2012-12-02 18:46:37)

Unia · 2012-12-02 18:47:05

Use amdcccle.

And just using --force without investigating why things don't work is bad practice. I guess you got lucky this time (or maybe, for now). It complained it was missing dependencies it needs to run/install and your log file would probably have told you which. I think it'd have been a quick and safer fix.

Skillz-404 · 2012-12-02 19:11:27

Ah, what can I say... "I live the wild life". tongue If the computer explodes, I will have learned that for next time.
Thank you much good sir Unia, amdcccle worked. I have my sound and dual screen. *Yay!* - And thank you el_koraco for the driver guide.

maurotikus · 2012-12-04 02:16:57

Thanks a lot for your guide, I'm new to #! and I could install Catalyst drivers succesfully. However, I have a bug when I log out my session, the screen goes black and the system doesn't recover, it doesn't even respond to keyboard's commands such as Win+Pause+B, I have to press the power button until it turns off and then turn the laptop on again. Thanks in advance for any help with this issue.

Skillz-404 · 2012-12-04 23:31:01

Okay, so forcing the driver to install was not such a good idea... It conflicted with the Kernel and gave me a blank screen after grub. I found the guide to uninstall the drivers to fix the blank screen, so now i need to reinstall properly to fix the displays and sound.
It give me the headers error saying "fglrx installation requires that the system have hernel headers. /lib/modules/3.2.0-3-amd64/build/include/linux/version.h' is missing.
How do I get that?

el_koraco · 2012-12-04 23:36:17

sudo apt-get install dkms linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential libstdc++6 libgl1-mesa-glx

xander · 2012-12-30 20:23:18

Hello,

First, I want to say thanks for this guide. Second I wanna say that if you also have older GPUs Like 4xxx and lower as I have, you can also install official ATI drivers with the manual guide and just downloading latest catalyst (12.6) with <= 4xxx support.

Last I wanna ask if i should now again change the /etc/default/grub file from

"quiet nomodeset radeon.modeset=0"

back to :

"quite"

Because when booting up and also in tty's 1-6 I have now everything very big. ( like 18 fonts ). But in main dekstop everything works good.

Thank You

intoCB · 2013-01-08 18:52:22

Perhaps I will be lionised but I'm going to break rank. I typically install Waldorf and have only used smxi once - I found it scary, claustrophobic and unnecessary. If you go to the ATI unofficial wiki and simply follow those basic instructions, it works and with far fewer steps and fewer third party installs. Smxi might be right for certain situations but I don't believe it is the most straightforward way to install the ATI drivers for Waldorf.

el_koraco · 2013-01-08 22:21:10

intoCB wrote:

Perhaps I will be lionised but I'm going to break rank. I typically install Waldorf and have only used smxi once - I found it scary, claustrophobic and unnecessary. If you go to the ATI unofficial wiki and simply follow those basic instructions, it works and with far fewer steps and fewer third party installs. Smxi might be right for certain situations but I don't believe it is the most straightforward way to install the ATI drivers for Waldorf.

Yeah, but I've had dozens of threads where people went the "unofficial" routes, and it resulted in a lot of fixing. So, while I do respect your opinion, keep it to yourself.

nemo · 2013-01-12 07:43:14

Followed the guide and everything works.
But if xorg gets updated it breaks. Hard. Can't even drop into the lower ttys.
Have to boot into recovery console and run smxi every single time xorg updates.
Did I do something wrong here?

CrunchBang Linux

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#51 2012-09-22 00:42:14

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#52 2012-09-22 10:36:55

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#53 2012-09-22 18:55:48

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#54 2012-09-22 19:33:36

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#55 2012-11-04 22:59:03

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#56 2012-11-07 08:57:43

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#57 2012-11-24 00:29:53

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#58 2012-11-24 00:43:21

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#59 2012-11-24 01:07:14

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#60 2012-11-24 01:11:42

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#61 2012-11-24 01:25:34

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#62 2012-11-24 09:37:38

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#63 2012-11-24 11:03:34

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#64 2012-12-02 17:10:57

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#65 2012-12-02 17:26:13

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#66 2012-12-02 18:25:22

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#67 2012-12-02 18:47:05

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#68 2012-12-02 19:11:27

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#69 2012-12-04 02:16:57

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#70 2012-12-04 23:31:01

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#71 2012-12-04 23:36:17

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#72 2012-12-30 20:23:18

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#73 2013-01-08 18:52:22

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#74 2013-01-08 22:21:10

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

#75 2013-01-12 07:43:14

Re: The definitive guide to proprietary AMD graphics drivers

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