Saturday, May 11, 2013

Having Trouble installing AMD / ATI drivers on ubuntu /linux Mint? Try This!

Ok, so installing the ATI drivers can be a bit tricky,
especially if you've tried  to install them and when you rebooted, you got an Xorg error,
and you can no longer run any graphical programs.

---If You can't login to the desktop---- (Xorg will not start)------
First, make sure it's not blacklisted,
open /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist in vi, or nano (if you have it)
and check for something referring to 'fglrx'
if you see one put a   #   Pound/number sign infront of it, then save/reboot.
(if you can still not boot to the desktop, keep reading in this section)

if you have that problem, you'll need to restore the original graphics settings,
so startup your pc, and you may be greeted with a message asking about running diagnostics,
You will not need this, then you should see a log in prompt, go ahead and log in.
once logged it, you will need to type:
cd /etc/X11 
(make sure you capitalize the 'X')
next type:
sudo mv xorg.conf xorg.conf.bad

and press enter, then type:
sudo cp xorg.conf.original-0 xorg.conf 

then reboot,
you should now be able to boot into the desktop (you may be in a more basic desktop environment)


-----------If you can boot to the desktop------------
now, switch back to the default drivers,
and run:
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx*
now reboot,

after you reboot,
install the drivers again, I suggest the beta/updates/post release (what ever the newest one is)

next press Ctrl + Alt + F2
to go to TTY2,
then login, after that type:

sudo init 1

and a type your password,
then a bunch of scary text should show up

after a few seconds, you'll be prompted to enter your password again,
...so do it.
you should have a new command line thing,
type this:
aticonfig --initial

more fancy text should fly by, and once it's done, reboot.

when your pc starts back up you should be good to go!