ATI graphics drivers

I'm looking for a little direction here on getting linux working smoothly with my ATI graphics card. My notebook specs are in my sig, and the card is a mobility radeon hd 3470.

I'm new to linux, and planning on trying out several distros. I installed ubuntu x64 9.04 on this laptop a few weeks ago and everything worked fine with default install. when I tried to use the Ati restricted drivers, they worked but the OS would start to lag after a while until it started locking up requiring a reboot. uninstalling those drivers fixed the problem, but I'd like to be able to use the full graphical potential of the card.

The other day I wiped the partitions and installed Mint x64 9.04. That was a little harder to get installed because the live cd wouldn't even boot or give a menu until I tapped esc and got to a prompt, manually typed in the kernel path and used xforcevesa. Mint then ran, but only at 800x600. I installed Mint to hdd and was then able to install the restricted ati driver and change res to the native 1280x800. That worked for a while but then started having the same lag and OS lockups, and I wasnt even running any apps other than firefox.

Tomorrow I'll hopefully be able to sit down and really do some deep google searching on the problem, but in the mean time I was wondering if someone knew how to fix this, or point me in the right direction.

 

If you are new to Linux, I would recommend for you to install Envy, its a program that will install the latest stable drivers for you. They are usually newer then the ones on the current distro. See if that helps..

 

The ATI drivers are currently having some major issues with the new xorg-server. AMD has been so slow in implementing the new standards that catalyst has been stricken out of the Arch Linux official repository.

A friend of mine has an HD 3650 in his Thinkpad W500, and we were able to get it to work great and snappy, even with heavy Compiz effects. However, it took some hefty patching to the xorg-server. The patches came from the Ubuntu bugtrack, though, so it should be readily available to Ubuntu in some form or other.

 

I'm Using Ubuntu 9.04 x64 with the restricted drivers on an hp dv2 with a mobility 3410. Short answer, ATI Linux drivers suck. As it stands now you have three options with Ubuntu (or Mint):

1. Use version 9.04 with the open source ATI driver (don't use the restricted driver manager): no 3d acceleration but stable

2. Use 9.04 with the restricted driver from ATI: disable compiz visual effects, xv video will crash, but open GL will work. Plenty of issues with hibernation. Forget about programs like AWN and Cairo dock.

3. Use Ubuntu 8.10 with 9.3 catalyst drivers. That seems to be the only combo that worked.

At any rate, I'm using the 9.6 catalyst drivers:

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Jaunty_Installation_Guide

 

Thanks for all the info !

 

Yeah, just chiming in to say "I agree". The open source drivers are MILES ahead of the Catalysts as long as you only do 2D stuff. Xv video acceleration, all that is awesome. But the 3D is essentially nonexistent, and won't be there for about a year or so. BUT, ATI is committed to providing open source 3D acceleration, and they have a couple developers doing that specifically. They're trying to get the architecture arranged so it's like Intel's, so they can share all the common parts in the kernel and X and such that don't need to be duplicated between drivers, but currently are.

 

What GPU are you using, and how is power handling in the open source drivers?

 

A little update on this for anyone that may have a similar problem in the future...

apparently ubuntu (and variant) versions higher than 8.04 don't play nice with ati notebook video chipsets (only a few ati cards are supported), and until ati releases a updated driver your pretty much stuck with the standard non-3d driver.

I had a problem getting Mint to display my native res of 1280x800, even with manually editing the xorg.conf. It would only display 800x600.
The fix was to boot Mint into recovery mode and choose the Xfix option. After that, Mint worked fine and recognised my native resolution.

 

Weird, because the ATI card in my desktop (see sig) works fine running Compiz and everything.

 

oops, I meant Ati notebook video chipsets.

there is some info here on what cards are supported.

my mobility radeon HD isnt supported and by the sound of it, it might be a year before we see any driver updates.

 

Ah, makes sense. I suspected that might be the difference.

 

Yeah when I bought my laptop I knew I was getting into Linux and thats why one of things it had to have was a Nvidia card. Nvidia has better drivers, but I did read ATI is trying to catch up.

 

I actually like what I'm hearing from ATI's end. It appears that they have decided to ramp up support for the open-source drivers instead of developing the proprietary drivers in-house. In any case, even if that turns out to be true, it's still too soon for us to see results.

 

I'm on (somewhat) the same boat here, except my card is a generation newer (sig). I'm using some proprietary Catalyst drivers, but it doesnt seem to use my card properly. Windows are very laggy, which they shouldnt be on hardware like mine. Are the open source ones any better or should i wait for an update to the proprietary ones?

 

My ATI GPU's are all desktop ones. My laptop is an older Core 2 Duo with a GeForce 7600GT in it. That said, I have a 3200HD in my media center machine, and crossfire 4670's in my desktop (I'm only using one under Linux, and that's not accelerated 3D yet)

 

I also have a ATI Mobility Radeon 3470 (albeit in a Lenovo ThinkPad T400). Unless you need 3D rendering support, use the open source radeonhd driver. It's so much better than fglrx (for everything except 3D rendering).

 

Will it work for my 4570?