Installing ati-amd graphic driver on Ubuntu

Install ATI Drivers in Ubuntu 11.10 – in three different ways

Posted by Richard on Oct 14, 2011 in Ubuntu | 2 comments

Ubuntu 11.10 by default will use an open-source driver for most ATI cards – and not FGLRX. Personally, I find these drivers fine for browsing the internet and playing HD videos. However, there is a noticeable performance increase with the closed-source ATI driver. This tutorial will be focusing on installing FGLRX on Ubuntu 11.10. At the bottom of the page, there are instructions on how to restore Ubuntu to the way things were before you attempted to install FGLRX. I recommend reading the full article before performing the upgrade, as there are different ways of installing FGLRX. Also, backing up your computer is highly recommended, as video drivers can be a touchy situation that can leave your computer with configuration problems which are tough to fix.

Installing FGLRX in Ubuntu 11.10 – from ATI’s website

This is a bit tougher way of doing things, but still isn’t too hard to do. I recommend trying the next method before this one, since uninstalling FGLRX in the other method is much easier. Firstly, you’ll have to download the driver from ATI’s website:

 http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

Next, right click on the downloaded file, go to Properties and make it an executable file.
Click on the file so it runs inside a terminal, enter your password when prompted, and go through the pretty simple installer.
After FGLRX is installed, pop up another terminal and enter: sudo aticonfig –initial . This will configure the driver and make it ready the next time your restart Ubuntu. You should see your desktop with compiz running on the next reboot. If not, then you’ll have to uninstall FGLRX and use the default ATI driver for Ubuntu. It’s beyond this tutorial to explore the plethora of possible reasons why this hasn’t worked.
To uninstall FGLRX, reboot into failsafe mode, open up a terminal and enter these commands:

cd /usr/share/ati
sudo sh ./fglrx-uninstall.sh

Now you can follow the steps below (which are at the very bottom of this post) on how to purge and reinstall FGLRX.

Installing FGLRX through Terminal

This way will install FGLRX just like Jockey (the Additional Drivers program, as seen in the next method), but by only using one little terminal command:

sudo apt-get install fglrx-modaliases

This will download, install and configure FGLRX automatically. Reboot to see the new driver in action.

The easy way of installing FGLRX on Ubuntu 11.10

This should sound familiar to you. Open up the dash and type in “Additional Drivers” and select the first result. After a little window pops up, you should see this screen:

“ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver” or “ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver (post-release update)” are fine options. The latter is just a version of FGLRX that gets periodically updated as new stable versions are released, while the other is never updated. Click activate and let your computer do it’s magic. A restart is necessary when done.

TO UNINSTALL FGLRX

If you install FGLRX in any of the above methods and want to purge/remove it, you must uninstall it by using these commands in failsafe mode:

sudo apt-get remove –purge xorg-driver-fglrx fglrx*

Then reinstall some packages that the driver overrode:

sudo apt-get install –reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri fglrx-modaliases
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
sudo apt-get install –reinstall xserver-xorg-core

TO REINSTALL THE DEFAULT ATI DRIVER

According to the Ubuntu Wiki, here’s how you reinstall the default ATI driver provided with Ubuntu:

sudo /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh # (if it exists)
sudo apt-get remove –purge fglrx*
sudo apt-get remove –purge xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-radeon
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati
sudo apt-get install –reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

I hope this tutorial helped you out. If you experience some problems, you can always drop by Ubuntuforums.org for some help from me and other Ubuntu users. Also, Askubuntu.com is becoming a really nice community too.

from:  http://mintsational.com/ubuntu/install-ati-drivers-in-ubuntu-11-10-in-three-different-ways/