What is the correct way to install proprietary ATI Catalyst Video Drivers (fglrx) directly from AMD?
The following instructions explain how to install the latest ATI Catalyst video driver of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin).
Ubuntu 12.10 instructions
Ubuntu 13.04 instructions
Note
AMD has released the Catalyst 12.8 driver for Linux systems in August bringing some improvements and bug fixes. This driver is based on the fglrx 8.982 release, and it improves support for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
To keep up to date with the latest driver information always refer to AMDs official website as updates are published fairly regularly.
Installing the AMD/ATI Catalyst drivers for 12.04 LTS
Tested: v12.4, v12.6, v12.8
Important Information and Preparation
Only use these instructions if you have opted NOT to use the official Ubuntu binaries.
- If you wish to use the official Ubuntu binaries or want to install the latest ATI Catalyst video driver for previous versions of Ubuntu, navigate to the answer of this question and follow the instructions.
Before deciding, check if Ubuntu supports your video card here.
- If you are currently using the official Ubuntu binaries and want to install the latest ATI Catalyst video driver there is a prerequisite to purge some files. Before proceeding with these instructions. You can Skip the step to purge if you have a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04.
Removing (purging) existing drivers
sudo sh /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx_* fglrx-amdcccle* fglrx-dev*
Install these dependencies
You need to install some dependencies to your system, do this by running these in Terminal:
sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++6 dkms libqtgui4 wget execstack libelfg0 dh-modaliases
For 64-bit Only
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs-multiarch i386 lib32gcc1 libc6-i386
Installing the lastest ATI/AMD driver
Download the appropriate driver for your machine here from the AMD/ATI Website and then enter the following into the terminal (remember to navigate to where you extracted the driver to beforehand and make sure no other .run files exist in that folder):
sudo sh *.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/precise
If it is required, a package manager window will open and install some dependencies and after a while create the following four .deb packages:
fglrx_8.961-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
fglrx-amdcccle_8.961-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
fglrx-dev_8.961-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
Note: It will also create a file called fglrx-installer_8.961-0ubuntu1_amd64.changes. If you wish you can read this file to know the changes that have been affected through AMD/ATI Catalyst and related information.
To install the created .deb files, type:
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
Note: In case any of the packages are broken, open Synaptic Package Manager and go to Edit -> Fix Broken Packages. In case you are new to Ubuntu, broken here means that some dependent packages are not yet installed. Once you sort out the issue as indicated above through the Synaptic Package Manager, the problem of broken packages should be resolved.
Continuing with the installation, type:
sudo aticonfig --initial
Before rebooting your computer: If you are using a beta version, you may want to remove the AMD "Testing" watermark. Otherwise skip the next block of instructions.
Beta versions: Removing the AMD "Testing" watermark
Edit the ATI signature file via "nano" or "gedit":
sudo nano /etc/ati/signatureOR
sudo gedit /etc/ati/signatureBy replacing the "UNSIGNED" line with the following code:
9777c589791007f4aeef06c922ad54a2:ae59f5b9572136d99fdd36f0109d358fa643f2bd4a2644d9efbb4fe91a9f6590a145:f612f0b01f2565cd9bd834f8119b309bae11a1ed4a2661c49fdf3fad11986cc4f641f1ba1f2265909a8e34ff1699309bf211a7eb4d7662cd9f8e3faf14986d92f646f1bcMake sure to save before/on closing the file.
That will remove the AMD "Testing" watermark (which you will now never see) from the bottom right of your screen when you reboot (source).
Now go ahead and reboot your computer.
If all is right, the fglrx driver that corresponds to AMD/ATI Catalyst will be installed and working on your system. To confirm the drivers are working open a terminal and type:
fglrxinfo
You should get an output similar to the following:
display: :0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 Series
OpenGL version string: 3.3.11631 Compatibility Profile Context
Note: If you see any mention of MESA in the output, the fglrx drivers have not been installed correctly. See the troubleshooting section for more details
You can make configuration changes through the AMD/ATI Catalyst Control Center. It can either be found in your Application menu or you can launch it through a terminal like this:
sudo amdcccle
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Be aware that when you manually install fglrx, this can subtly break your system, since the packaging system isn't made aware of your changes.
The Launchpad developers get many bug reports from users who do this and then later discover after a few upgrades that their system starts behaving weird because of those fglrx remnants.
Installing the ATI Catalyst Drivers for 12.10
Important UPDATE (22nd October 2012)
Latest proprietary AMD Catalyst driver version 12.9 cannot be used with Ubuntu 12.10 If you have a AMD Radeon HD 2xxx-4xxx series card.
Drivers for these cards are now available in a separate branch called legacy series. Unfortunately these legacy drivers (version 12.6) have not been updated to work with Ubuntu 12.10. Ubuntu 12.10 comes with xorg 1.13 while these drivers have support for older xorg 1.12. So if you want to install these drivers in Ubuntu 12.10, you have to downgrade to xorg 1.12.
Source and get Legacy Drivers here (if above note applies to you
INSTRUCTIONS
Uninstall firstly the current AMD driver with these two commands:
sudo sh /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx_* fglrx-amdcccle* fglrx-dev* xorg-driver-fglrx
Note: You will need to install the drivers (following the instructions below) but first add the same dependencies described in the answer above for 12.04LTS.
Start now the installation of ATI Catalyst v# with these commands under Ubuntu 12.10 or older:
cd /tmp && wget -O amd-driver-12-6-x86_64.run http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/amd-driver-installer-12-6-x86.x86_64.run
chmod +x amd-driver-12-6-x86_64.run
sudo sh amd-driver-12-6-x86_64.run
Then follow setup instructions:
Run next this command to finish the installation:
sudo aticonfig --initial -f
Then reboot your system:
sudo reboot
That's it!
Installing the ATI Catalyst Drivers for 13.04
These instructions will install Catalyst v13.4, in order to see what is the latest available driver visit the Official AMD Website
Instructions
Check your card
Only RadeonHD cards are supported by Catalyst drivers.
To know which card is installed in your system type the following command in a terminal:
lspci | grep VGA
It may show you your graphic card.
Before continue please read first! Which Radeon cards are no longer supported by ATI's Catalyst:
Cards that no longer can make use of AMD Catalyst drivers and are limited to open-source drivers:
ATI Radeon 9500-9800, Xpress200-1250, 690G, 740G, X300-X2500, Mobility RadeonHD 2300
Cards that doesn't work with AMD Catalyst in Xserver versions newer than v1.13 and Linux Kernel newer than v3.5:
ATI RadeonHD 2x00 - 4xx0 cards
These cards can make use of the Catalyst Legacy driver, but only if you downgrade your Xserver version. This can be done really easily by following the instructions given at LaunchPad. This PPA downgrades the Xserver and install a patched version of fglrx that supports kernel version 3.5.
Removing (purging) existing drivers
sudo sh /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx_* fglrx-amdcccle* fglrx-dev*
Install Dependencies
For 32-bit systems:
sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs dh-make dkms execstack dh-modaliases linux-headers-generic fakeroot libqtgui4For 64-bit systems:
sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs dh-make dkms execstack dh-modaliases linux-headers-generic fakeroot libqtgui4 lib32gcc1
Download Catalyst package
cd ~/
mkdir catalyst
cd catalyst/
In order to have the latest drivers installed check if v13.4 is the latest offered in AMD Webpage, if v13.4 isn't the latest you may want to manually download the drivers from there, extract the zip file to ~/catalyst/ folder and then skip the following first two commands and execute the last replacing the package name with the name of the extracted one in ~/catalyst/ folder
wget http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/amd-catalyst-13.4-linux-x86.x86_64.zip
unzip amd-catalyst-13.4-linux-x86.x86_64.zip
chmod +x amd-catalyst-13.4-linux-x86.x86_64.run
Install Drivers
Navigate to the extracted package (~/catalyst/), make sure it is the only .run file in that folder, and type in the following command
sudo sh *.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/raring
An AMD Catalyst window will open to deploy the .deb packages wait until it finishes and then execute this command to proceed:
sudo dpkg -i fglrx*.deb
Configuration
Generic Configuration
This will work for most people
sudo aticonfig --initial -fMinimal Config
A very basic /etc/X11/xorg.conf file might be what you need if you have a new card that's not fully supported by aticonfig. Here follows the entirety of a minimal xorg.conf file for the Radeon HD 6870:
Section "Device" Identifier "ATI radeon 6870" Driver "fglrx" EndSectionX2/Dual GPU Cards
Only use if you have an X2 card (e.g. 4870X2 or 5970) !!Do not use for two separate cards in crossfire!!
sudo amdconfig --initial -f --adapter=allDual/Multi Monitors
If you have a dual monitor display (also known as "Big Desktop")
sudo aticonfig --initial -f sudo aticonfig --set-pcs-str="DDX,EnableRandR12,FALSE"Be advised that you may need to manually set the correct refresh rate for your second monitor through catalyst. See this threat.
Before Rebooting
Just in case, write down these instructions for the case you get a black screen:
If the X server fails to start, switch to a new TTY using
Ctrl+Alt+F2. Log in, and attempt to start the X server.sudo startxIf it fails to start, you will likely see a stacktrace, and immediately above it will be something along the lines of "Could not stat /usr/lib64/fglrx/switchlibGL" which means that you failed to copy the executables properly.
Ctrl+C, and immediately copy the switchlibGL and switchlibglx executables to the fglrx folder in /usr/lib64/ or /usr/lib32/.If all else fails, revert your xorg.conf and reboot:
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.orig /etc/X11/xorg.confThis should return your original display.
If anything worked, try these key combinations in this order:
Ctrl+Alt+F1 ; Ctrl+Alt+Backspace ; Alt+PrntScr+r ; Alt+PrntScr+s ; Alt+PrntScr+e ; Alt+PrntScr+i ; Alt+PrntScr+n ; Alt+PrntScr+u ; Alt+PrntScr+b ; and in the last case hold Ctrl+Alt+SysRq (SysRq usually is the same as Print Screen) and type very slowly R E I S U B.
Test your Installation
Restart your system and type in the terminal:
fglrxinfo
The output may be similar to this if everything went fine:
display: :0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series (This line may be different depending on what graphics card you are using.)
OpenGL version string: 4.2.12217 Compatibility Profile Context 12.104 (This line may be different depending on what graphics card and Catalyst version you are using.)
Now try:
fgl_glxgears
If you experience issues or a hang, you may need to disable fast TLS:
sudo aticonfig --tls=0
That is it!
Source