How to install video proprietary drivers in Ubuntu

How to install video proprietary drivers in Ubuntu

I recently had some driver issues with my laptop, specifically related to my video display driver. I wanted to install the original proprietary display drivers for my ATI 4670 mobile display adapter but soon after noticed that I had some issues with it. I’ll explain that in another article. I’ll try to explain how you can install the display proprietary drivers, as well as the original drivers from ATI in this and my next article.

Keep this in mind however, ATI is known to drop support for linux users very fast, so by the time I finished doing my the installation, I found out it was impossible for my display adapter to be installed. Anyways, for those that still have support, you can follow the steps below to install the proprietary drivers.

Step 1. – Remove existing installation of drivers.

First you need to remove the current installation and purge out the settings. You can do this by using:

• This may not exist if you didn’t installed your display adapter manually from ATI website

• This needs to complete and purge your fglrx settings

Step 2. – Install the proprietary drivers.

After you’ve completed these you need to reboot your computer, afterwards you can start practically to install a fresh fglrx again with new xorg.conf.

1. Backup your current xorg.conf to still have a copy in case something goes wrong
   
   sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.BAK

   1	sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.BAK

2. If you are running 12.04.2 to 13.04, you need to install the linux generic headers
   
   sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic

   1	sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic

3. And install fglrx again (it will add a new module to your kernel):
   
   sudo apt-get install fglrx fglrx-amdcccle

   1	sudo apt-get install fglrx fglrx-amdcccle

4. Generate a fresh xorg.conf before rebooting else you will not be able to see anything but a blank / black screen!
   
   sudo aticonfig --initial

   1	sudo aticonfig --initial

   
   or:
   
   sudo amdconfig --initial

   1	sudo amdconfig --initial

   
   If you have multiple AMD graphics cards or AMD dual graphics use:
   
   sudo aticonfig --adapter=all --initial

   1	sudo aticonfig --adapter=all --initial

   
   or:
   
   sudo amdconfig --adapter=all --initial

   1	sudo amdconfig --adapter=all --initial

   
   
   Heads up! If these options do not work for you, it means that your display adapter is not supported by the proprietary drivers. See at the end a link to an article where you can still install a driver for your card. 
5. Reboot again.
6. To confirm the drivers are working open a terminal and type:
   
   fglrxinfo

   1

   fglrxinfo

   
   You should get an output similar to the following:
   
   fglrxinfo display: :0 screen: 0 OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 4670M Series OpenGL version string: 4.2.11733 Compatibility Profile Context

   1 2 3 4 5

   fglrxinfo display: :0  screen: 0 OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 4670M Series OpenGL version string: 4.2.11733 Compatibility Profile Context

If everything worked for you, everything should be completed. If you however had issues at point 4, then you will need to follow along below article:

Install open source display drivers