Ubuntu Dapper Installation Guide

Method 1: Installing Dapper's Included Driver (8.23.7)

The fglrx driver supports Radeon 8500+ and the X-series cards up to X850.

Installing the driver

Make sure the restricted repository is enabled in /etc/apt/sources.list or this guide will not work!

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux-restricted-modules-$(uname -r) #Okay if it is already installed
sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx
sudo aticonfig --initial
sudo aticonfig --overlay-type=Xv

Reboot.

Confirm that it works

$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON 9700 Generic
OpenGL version string: 2.0.5695 (8.23.7)

Troubleshooting

• The output of dmesg | grep fglrx and /var/log/Xorg.0.log are most useful when looking for errors.

• It might be necessary to create a symlink to get accelerated OpenGL:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/dri /usr/lib/xorg/modules/dri

• You can force early loading of the fglrx module by adding it to /etc/modules

• To ensure you automatically get the current linux-restricted-modules package with kernel updates, you should install the linux-restricted-modules-??? package matching your kernel-type (without version numer), e.g. linux-restricted-modules-386, linux-restricted-modules-686 or linux-restricted-modules-k7.

Method 2: Generating/Installing Ubuntu packages for the newer 8.24.8 drivers in Ubuntu Dapper

Important Change: Installation of this driver no longer requires removing the linux-restricted-modules package in order to work. There is a new blacklist feature in Ubuntu Dapper that you can use to go around this.

Blacklist fglrx module from linux-restricted-modules

sudo gedit /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common

Edit DISABLED_MODULES to include fglrx

Installing the new driver

Download the ATI driver installer: 32bit Installer

This guide refers to the 32bit version of the driver. If you are using a x86_64 System you need the 64bit Installer. The installation procedure should be the same as for 32bit, except some filenames will differ slightly.

Change to the download directory. Make sure that you have the universe and multiverse repositories enabled in /etc/apt/sources.list before doing these steps.

Install necessary tools:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install module-assistant build-essential 
sudo apt-get install fakeroot dh-make debconf libstdc++5 gcc-3.3-base

Create .deb packages:

chmod +x ati-driver-installer-8.24.8-x86.run
LANG=C LC_ALL=C ./ati-driver-installer-8.24.8-x86.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/dapper

Install .deb packages:

sudo dpkg -i xorg-driver-fglrx_8.24.8-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i fglrx-kernel-source_8.24.8-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i fglrx-control_8.24.8-1_i386.deb

Remove any old fglrx deb's from /usr/src/:

sudo rm /usr/src/fglrx-kernel*.deb

Compile the kernel module:

sudo module-assistant prepare,update
sudo module-assistant build,install fglrx

Note: You have to recompile the kernel module after each kernel update!

Update the xorg.conf file:

sudo aticonfig --initial
sudo aticonfig --overlay-type=Xv

Reboot.

Confirm that it worked

$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: RADEON 9700 Generic
OpenGL version string: 2.0.5755 (8.24.8)

Troubleshooting

General

Look for error messages in /var/log/Xorg.0.log and /var/log/kern.log.

HP dv5029us Notebook PC

If you have an HP Notebook Computer such as the HP dv5029dvus it is needed to modify the BIOS configuration. It seems for some reason using sideport memory (the card's onboard memory only) leads to an apparent system crash although the logs show successful initialization of DRI. It is needed to run the BIOS setup screen, go to memory options, and select UMA+Sideport memory and assign a value to it (I assigned an extra 128M from the system RAM). Boot the computer and the fglrx driver will work. FGLRX version is 8.23.7 on an i386 Ubuntu Dapper install.

Revert to Xorg driver

If (for any reason) the fglrx install fails, you can revert to the Xorg driver by executing

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

and selecting the "ati" driver.