End of the road for Ubuntu?

Lubuntu and Xubuntu do not need compoziting and will run on low end hardware. They are also fully supported by the same Ubuntu community.

Try to be less melodramatic in future. Just state the issue at hand

This is very general. Be more specific. What video drivers are you looking for?

There are actually three machines in play here, but the video driver
issue pertains to my older HP Pavillion DV5 1004nr laptop.

ATI radeon on the HP pavillion DV5. Hasn't worked right since 10.04.

What is frustrating about the older laptop (which was very high end when
it was new) is the LIVE CD drives the video just fine. When booting from
the hard drive no video except on external monitor. Apparently there is
a driver on the live CD that works. Why it isn't included with the
install is beyond me.

 The laptop monitor shows up when I run lspci, but will not fire up
except once in a very great while. I have tried the PPA's for AMDCCLE,
with no luck. My chipset happens to be one of the ones listed as not
supported.

Meanwhile we are struggling to get Ubuntu to work properly in my son's
new HP desktop. We finally got the workaround for UEFI, kind of ugly
boot process but workable. He isn't sure exacrly what he did to get it
working - alot of trial and error. Many things (such as the wifi) still
aren't working on that machine.

I have given up on trying to install or dual boot on my daughter's less
than one year old Lenovo laptop. The partition is there, but it will not
render an option to do so to Ubuntu. I am very hesitant to mess with the
BIOS, afraid I will render it unusable. (Another windows 8 with UEFI)

On Fri, 2013-12-27 at 13:35 +0000, Daniel Letzeisen wrote:
> Your question #241320 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/241320
>
> Daniel Letzeisen requested more information:
> This is very general. Be more specific. What video drivers are you
> looking for?
>

Tried both distros, also the PPA's regarding AMDCCLE. The driver that
the live CD uses works, but apparently is not included with the install.

On Fri, 2013-12-27 at 11:26 +0000, actionparsnip wrote:
> Your question #241320 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/241320
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> actionparsnip proposed the following answer:
> Lubuntu and Xubuntu do not need compoziting and will run on low end
> hardware. They are also fully supported by the same Ubuntu community.
>

Ubuntu comes with the open-source radeon driver on the LiveUSB and it is installed/used by default. Although there may be some configuration difference between the LiveUSB and an fresh install, it is the same driver being used.

The best thing you can do as regards the Catalyst Legacy driver is a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04.1 ( http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/precise/ ). You should then be able to install Catalyst Legacy without resorting to hacks/PPA's

sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs dh-make dkms execstack dh-modaliases fakeroot libqtgui4 unzip

cd ~/

wget http://www2.ati.com/drivers/legacy/amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip

unzip amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip

chmod +x amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.run #NOTE: filename may be different, autocomplete (tab) is your friend

sudo sh ./amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/precise

sudo dpkg -i fglrx*.deb

sudo amdconfig --initial -f

Wget finds and downloads the package but when I run:
unzip amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip

I get:
Archive: amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip
  End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not
  a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the
  latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
  the last disk(s) of this archive.
unzip: cannot find zipfile directory in one of amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip or
        amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip.zip, and cannot find amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip.ZIP, period.

Delete it and try to download it again

Wget finds and downloads the package but when I run:
unzip amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip

I get:
Archive: amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip
  End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not
  a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the
  latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
  the last disk(s) of this archive.
unzip: cannot find zipfile directory in one of amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip or
        amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip.zip, and cannot find amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip.ZIP, period.

I must be doing something wrong
 sudo sh ./amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/precise

And then-

sh: 0: Can't open ./amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.run

The error messages indicate that something went wrong with your download.
Maybe this is caused by AMD refusing deep links to their downloads.

Try opening http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Linux+x86 and download the driver file from there.
Then continue with unzipping etc.

So just use the previous commands with that as the source? My laptop tells me I have the latest driver.....

Yes, download the amd-driver-installer-catalyst-13.1-legacy-linux-x86.x86_64.zip file and execute the commands as given (unzip..., chmod..., sudo sh..., sudo dpkg..., sudo amdconfig... etc.)

What is the output of the terminal command

dpkg -l | grep fglrx

When I put in: dpkg -l | grep fglrx Terminal just goes back to the command line, no output

If there is no output from the dpkg... command, this shows that you have not installed the fglrx package.

Note that meanwhile there is a newer version available than the one at the date when Daniel Letzeisen wrote his instruction, so you have to slightly adapt the commands to fit to the current file names.

Try again:
Browse to http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Linux+x86
Download the "AMD Catalyst™ 13.12 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver" by clicking on the "Download" link and store the file in your Download folder.
Open a terminal
"cd" to your Download folder
Verify with "ls -lh" that the file amd-catalyst-13.12-linux-x86.x86_64.zip is there and that it is about 150 MB in size.
Continue with the commands that Daniel Letzeisen has priovded:

unzip amd-catalyst-13.12-linux-x86.x86_64.zip
chmod +x amd-catalyst-13.12-linux-x86.x86_64.run #NOTE: filename may be different, autocomplete (tab) is your friend
sudo sh ./amd-catalyst-13.12-linux-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/precise
sudo dpkg -i fglrx*.deb
sudo amdconfig --initial -f

If there is anything now working, please do not hesitate to tell us, and please provide all output.

Thanks. getting closer, still not quite there.It did unzip and "make" the package, but failed to install. I got the following errors-

-laptop:~/Downloads$ sudo dpkg -i fglrx*.deb
Selecting previously unselected package fglrx.
(Reading database ... 200030 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking fglrx (from fglrx_13.251-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package fglrx-amdcccle.
Unpacking fglrx-amdcccle (from fglrx-amdcccle_13.251-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package fglrx-dev.
Unpacking fglrx-dev (from fglrx-dev_13.251-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of fglrx:
 fglrx depends on lib32gcc1; however:
  Package lib32gcc1 is not installed.
 fglrx depends on libc6-i386; however:
  Package libc6-i386 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing fglrx (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of fglrx-amdcccle:
 fglrx-amdcccle depends on fglrx; however:
  Package fglrx is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing fglrx-amdcccle (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of fglrx-dev:
 fglrx-dev depends on fglrx; however:
  Package fglrx is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing fglrx-dev (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot
Errors were encountered while processing:
 fglrx
 fglrx-amdcccle
 fglrx-dev

also:
laptop:~/Downloads$ sudo amdconfig --initial -f
sudo: amdconfig: command not found

Now try

sudo apt-get install -f
sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo aticonfig --initial
fglrxinfo

and copy/paste all output

Just before I got that last info, APT informed me I had broken packages. I ran apt-update -f; it downloaded and installed a bunch of stuff including flgrx and amdccle packages. When I rebooted, the graphics were completely messed up, even on the console. I am reinstalling from the 64 bit alternate CD. Will try again after re-install.