How do I properly switch from open to proprietary ATI Radeon drivers?

alarazr · 07-23-2012, 01:25 PM

Hey guys. Last time I tried to simply uninstall radeon-related packages on Synaptic and install fglrx, but I couldn't get it working. I ended up doing a full reinstall and now I'm back at square one.

The open drivers don't have the performance necessary to run graphically intensive applications. On a heavy Ubuntu, Debian or Mint installation I have high graphical performance for games, Google Earth etc, but the open driver cannot match fglrx yet

I have a minimal Debian netinstall with Xfce4

When searching 'radeon' on Synaptic, the following packages are installed

xserver-xorg-video-radeon
radeontool
libdrm-radeon1
xserver-xorg-video-ati

Thanks in advance for the help

EDDY1 · 07-23-2012, 02:14 PM

Depends on which graphics card you're using because they dropped support for some of the cards.
All of the hd under 5000
post output of

Quote:

lspci

alarazr · 07-23-2012, 02:25 PM

Here are the results of lspci

Quote:

alarazr@xweb:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express DRAM Controller (rev 10)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 10)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation N10/ICH7 Family SATA IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV730XT [Radeon HD 4670]
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc RV710/730
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
alarazr@xweb:~$

EDDY1 · 07-23-2012, 02:44 PM

Yes I believe they dropped support for that so you may have to use the opensource drivers. I have the hd4290 & have found that the fglrx doesn't support it. Although I haven't tried to download directly from amd.
Tobisgd suggested a fix here
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...an-4175416849/

alarazr · 07-23-2012, 02:48 PM

Thanks mate, I'll have a look. If not, I'll just make do with the open drivers temporarily because I've got a new card being delivered next week anyway =)

Thanks again

Xplorer4x4 · 07-23-2012, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1

Depends on which graphics card you're using because they dropped support for some of the cards.
All of the hd under 5000
post output of

Quote:

lspci

They have not dropped support just yet, but will soon.

TobiSGD · 07-23-2012, 03:20 PM

Actually, they have dropped support from the mainline drivers since Catalyst 12.6 for HD2/3/4000 cards, but there is a legacy version of Catalyst 12.6, which is currently in Beta state. See the last part of this post: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ml#post4722866

But that shouldn't be a problem if you use Debian 6/Squeeze, you can just use the 12.4 version, it should run fine with that card. You only have to use the free drivers or AMD's legacy driver if you want to use Wheezy or Sid.