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Mint 17 Cinnamon failed, stuck in fallback (likely caused by graphics driver install)

Hi LQ,
I am currently experiencing an issue on a fresh install of Mint 17.1 Cinnamon in which I am permanently stuck in fallback mode (that is, unless I hard shutdown or reboot) on an aging laptop with AMD Radeon HD 4200 graphics (considered legacy). I believe this issue was caused by a failed install of AMD's latest linux graphics drivers, in which I literally opened the .run file and attempted to install. The install failed (some error), of course, but when I rebooted, I was kicked into fallback. After some googling, I autoremoved fglrx then installed fglrx, as I read would reinstall fglrx, the proprietary drivers for AMD cards and rebooted. Still stuck in fallback. I removed and installed Xorg and rebooted. Still stuck in fallback. I downloaded the AMD legacy drivers from AMD's site (my card's series included with this set). Had to change the permissions to run this .run file but eventually ran it from terminal, but this install also failed (claimed I was missing tool(s), despite not indicating precisely what I was missing). I'm still rummaging around for fixes, but maybe asking can help. I can provide some more info below, but let me know what else you need (and how to get it) if you wish to help. I really want linux to work out for me instead of shelling out $$ for Windows, but so far this has been a rocky start. Thanks

Code:

inxi -G

yields

Code:

Graphics:  Card: AMD RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250]

X.Org: 1.15.1

drivers: fbdev,ati,radeon (unloaded: fglrx,vesa)

Resolution: 1024x768@76hz

GLX Renderer: N/A

GLX Version: N/A

Code:

lshw -C video

yields

Code:

*-display UNCLAIMED

description: VGA compatible controller

product: RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250]

vendor: AMD

physical id: 5

...(bunch of stuff on specs)

Have also did apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade.
Still no luck, let me know what you think.

I used to have an ATI card and had to jump many hoops getting it to work. When it did work, it ran fine, but sometimes a kernel update would make me jump all the hoops again.

When uninstalling, you may have to use the option "purge" rather than "uninstall" so that settings are deleted also.

Also, you may need to find the last working driver and not use anything above that. Mine was ./amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.run and nothing else worked. I think my card was a 6200. And when installing the driver i had to be in single user mode init 3 or something (i.e. not just sudo while in a gui)

When grepping my history, i see a lot of this stuff:... (read it, DO NOT RUN anything without know what you are doing)! i.e. DO NOT TAKE THIS VERBATIM, this is just some of my bash history matches in no particular order.

Code:

./bash_hist.txt: aptitude search fglrx

./bash_hist.txt: sudo aptitude install fglrx-modules-dkms

./bash_hist.txt: fglrxinfo

./bash_hist.txt: sudo aptitude install fglrx-driver fglrx-atieventsd fglrx-modules-dkms libfglrx libgl1-fglrx-glx xserver-xorg-video-fglrx

./bash_hist.txt: sudo aptitude purge fglrx-driver fglrx-atieventsd fglrx-modules-dkms libfglrx libgl1-fglrx-glx xserver-xorg-video-fglrx

./bash_hist.txt: sudo sh /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh

./bash_hist.txt: sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx_* fglrx-amdcccle* fglrx-dev*

./bash_hist.txt: sudo aptitude purge fglrx-driver

./bash_hist.txt: sudo echo -e 'Section "Device"\n\tIdentifier "My GPU"\n\tDriver "fglrx"\nEndSection' > /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-fglrx.conf

./bash_hist.txt: sudo lsmod fglrx

./bash_hist.txt: sudo modprobe fglrx

./bash_hist.txt: sudo aptitude search fglrx

./bash_hist.txt: sudo aptitude reinstall fglrx-legacy-driver fglrx-legacy-modules-dkms fglrx-legacy-source libgl1-fglrx-legacy-glx

./bash_hist.txt: sudo aptitude search mesa

./bash_hist.txt: sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx xserver-xorg-core

the best thing i did was avoid ati, but you don't have that luxury on a laptop; also, that's my choice -- there are tons of people that prefer ati.

i really hope none of this makes it worse for you! when i did all this, i had to take info from many different googled resources and merge the ideas to get something working including editing xorg.conf and being certain to have a copy once something worked.

fglrx is indeed a real pain, but you do need it for the 4000 series Radeon. I found this for the case you do manage to get it installed and don't want updates to kill it.

To install something you don't want updated:

Code:

sudo apt-get install (fglrx=2:8.960-0ubuntu1) the software and its issue#

sudo apt-mark hold (fglrx) hold the software; updates become “recommended”

Thanks guys, but seeing how painful graphics driver installation is on Cinnamon, I just cut my losses and reinstalled Mint. It goes to show that not a whole lot of companies very well support Linux systems. Thank you for the suggestions, I did try purge as well but that also did me no good. Also, any installation of the Catalyst Control Center (fglrx-amdcccle) will force this crash as well.