Since there are no longer support for fglrx driver in Ubuntu 16.04, so it seems the built in radeon driver is the only way to solve this problem. First, you have to confirm that your ATI Radeon graphics card is supported by Xorg driver by typing man radeon
in 16.04 terminal. Here is mine:
R100 Radeon 7200
RV100 Radeon 7000(VE), M6, RN50/ES1000
RS100 Radeon IGP320(M)
RV200 Radeon 7500, M7, FireGL 7800
RS200 Radeon IGP330(M)/IGP340(M)
RS250 Radeon Mobility 7000 IGP
R200 Radeon 8500, 9100, FireGL 8800/8700
RV250 Radeon 9000PRO/9000, M9
RV280 Radeon 9200PRO/9200/9200SE/9250, M9+
RS300 Radeon 9100 IGP
RS350 Radeon 9200 IGP
RS400/RS480 Radeon XPRESS 200(M)/1100 IGP
R300 Radeon 9700PRO/9700/9500PRO/9500/9600TX, FireGL X1/Z1
R350 Radeon 9800PRO/9800SE/9800, FireGL X2
R360 Radeon 9800XT
RV350 Radeon 9600PRO/9600SE/9600/9550, M10/M11, FireGL T2
RV360 Radeon 9600XT
RV370 Radeon X300, M22
RV380 Radeon X600, M24
RV410 Radeon X700, M26 PCIe
R420 Radeon X800 AGP
R423/R430 Radeon X800, M28 PCIe
R480/R481 Radeon X850 PCIe/AGP
RV505/RV515/RV516/RV550 Radeon X1300/X1400/X1500/X1550/X2300
R520 Radeon X1800
RV530/RV560 Radeon X1600/X1650/X1700
RV570/R580 Radeon X1900/X1950
RS600/RS690/RS740 Radeon X1200/X1250/X2100
R600 Radeon HD 2900
RV610/RV630 Radeon HD 2400/2600/2700/4200/4225/4250
RV620/RV635 Radeon HD 3410/3430/3450/3470/3650/3670
RV670 Radeon HD 3690/3850/3870
RS780/RS880 Radeon HD 3100/3200/3300/4100/4200/4250/4290
RV710/RV730 Radeon HD 4330/4350/4550/4650/4670/5145/5165/530v/545v/560v/565v
RV740/RV770/RV790 Radeon HD 4770/4730/4830/4850/4860/4870/4890
CEDAR Radeon HD 5430/5450/6330/6350/6370
REDWOOD Radeon HD 5550/5570/5650/5670/5730/5750/5770/6530/6550/6570
JUNIPER Radeon HD 5750/5770/5830/5850/5870/6750/6770/6830/6850/6870
CYPRESS Radeon HD 5830/5850/5870
HEMLOCK Radeon HD 5970
PALM Radeon HD 6310/6250
SUMO/SUMO2 Radeon HD 6370/6380/6410/6480/6520/6530/6550/6620
BARTS Radeon HD 6790/6850/6870/6950/6970/6990
TURKS Radeon HD 6570/6630/6650/6670/6730/6750/6770
CAICOS Radeon HD 6430/6450/6470/6490
CAYMAN Radeon HD 6950/6970/6990
ARUBA Radeon HD 7000 series
TAHITI Radeon HD 7900 series
PITCAIRN Radeon HD 7800 series
VERDE Radeon HD 7700 series
OLAND Radeon HD 8000 series
HAINAN Radeon HD 8000 series
BONAIRE Radeon HD 7790 series
KAVERI KAVERI APUs
KABINI KABINI APUs
HAWAII Radeon R9 series
MULLINS MULLINS APUs
If your graphics card is not listed, you should go back to Ubuntu 14.04 and use fglrx driver until your device supported by Ubuntu 16.04.
Next step, install your ubuntu 16.04 and update Ubuntu kernel to the latest stable kernel version. You can check your kernel version by typing in your terminal:
uname -r
Search for the latest kernel here. For the tutorial installing new kernel is available here.
After installing kernel, please reboot your computer and login using your new kernel.
To make your ATI Radeon graphics card fully detected by the OS, tell the kernel to load it by editing the grub:
- Open your GRUB configuration by typing in your terminal:
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
- Add
modprobe radeon.modeset=1
after quiet splash
command. Then it will be like this : " ... quiet splash modprobe radeon.modeset=1"
. Be sure there are no nomodeset
in grub configuration. To finish, enter: ctrl+x
, and type y
, and Enter
.
- Run in your terminal
sudo update-grub
.
- Reboot your computer.
After your radeon graphics card recognized by the OS, of course you can switch to use Intel graphics card and disable the radeon one by adding some configuration. Create a script, place it somewhere in your home folder. In my case, I use this:
cd ~
nano radeon_off
Put the following in the script:
chown CHANGE_WITH_YOUR_USERNAME /sys/kernel/debug
chown CHANGE_WITH_YOUR_USERNAME /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo DIS > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
To finish, enter: ctrl+x
, and type y
, and Enter
.
Type: chmod 755 radeon_off
,
Edit lightdm configuration by entering in your terminal: sudo nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
.
Add this line : session-setup-script = /home/CHANGE_WITH_YOUR_USERNAME/radeon_off
Reboot.
To verify your radeon graphics card has been disabled, type sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
in your terminal. The results may be similar to this:
0:IGD:+:Pwr:0000:00:02.0
1:DIS: :DynOff:0000:01:00.0
You need the DIS
to have :DynOff
value or maybe just :Off
is fine.
Best Answer
PRE-NOTES
This answer also applies to the latest HWE upgrade for 14.04 (AKA 14.04.5). That upgrade brings Xorg and the kernel to the versions on 16.04. Read below for more details on why this is important.
BACKGROUND
Let's start off with a general description.
With the release of Ubuntu 16.04, came the lack of proprietary drivers for AMD. "Why?" you might ask. Well, it's because of a few things.
Firstly, it's just not compatible. You won't find
fglrx
in 16.04 repositories, nor will you find a version for 16.04 online. If you download the latest version from AMD's website and install it, you'll run into Low Graphics Mode, blank screens, and other nasty stuff you don't want to happen.You might be hoping that AMD will step in to update the driver, but then you must not know AMD's reputation for ditching support for even slightly older cards on Linux. Since AMD doesn't want to update the driver, Canonical could make one for Ubuntu, except it won't. Since 16.04 is an LTS release, Canonical would have to maintain an AMD driver for at least 5 years, which would be hard to do.
There's always the possibility that AMD will release another widely compatible graphics driver or that people might just move away from AMD on Linux. It doesn't make sense to spend a lot of effort on a driver for a few Linux OSes (doing it for all would be harder), which would still have to be supported if a new driver came out from AMD.
More on this here: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/03/ubuntu-drops-amd-catalyst-fglrx-driver-16-04
PERFORMANCE
Now, just because you don't have a proprietary driver doesn't necessarily mean you'll have a terrible time. After all, Intel does it just fine.
If you just use your computer for web browsing, email, answering/asking questions here, a few YouTube videos, and not much else, then the lack of proprietary drivers probably won't bother you. You may notice some stutter in video, and you may not. Honestly, there's no way to tell beforehand.
If you game, use rendering applications, 3D modeling programs, or any other graphically advanced or intense software, you're in a much more complicated situation.
Personally, I've mostly seen reports here and on reviews and articles elsewhere that say AMD with open source drivers is terrible: programs don't work, since they need OpenGL/CL versions that the default drivers can't provide; games are laggy and stuttery; videos cut out, and take the audio with them; etc. However, I've also seen a few people say they can game just fine, videos are perfect, and there's no trouble.
This contradiction may be due to the two different open source drivers available:
radeon
andAMDGPU
.AMDGPU
provides better performance I believe, but it's only available for newer cards. Older cards (which to AMD could mean 6 months if you're unlucky) are stuck withradeon
, and a search of Google and Ask Ubuntu will show you there's no way to switch which one you're using. At least, there's no way that's been released.Just like with many things, you can't know what will happen unless you try, so if you're willing to risk an upgrade, go ahead.
OPTIONS
So maybe you took the plunge, hoping you'd have the card that would get
AMDGPU
, but weren't so lucky. Maybe you installed or upgraded without knowing the situation with AMD. Maybe you gotAMDGPU
and it just isn't enough. Whatever the reason you're on 16.04 with AMD graphics, there are a few options for you.1. The first, and most obvious, is to just to downgrade to 14.04.
fglrx
and get the performance you want/need.fglrx
. Read here.Maybe 14.04 is too old for you, though. Maybe it doesn't have compatibility for that new application you use so much. Maybe you don't want to go through the trouble of backing up data and reinstalling. Well, there is another option.
2. Try out Oibaf's drivers.
Oibaf's driver seems like a great replacement to
fglrx
, and it probably is. However, if you have a really recent AMD card, you may want to try out AMD's own offering.3. AMDGPU-PRO
fglrx
did.Unfortunately, AMDGPU-PRO is not a true replacement for
fglrx
. While it does provide support for 16.04, it's only compatible 20 models. That's not very much.If you don't care about performance, or you already have what you need, then don't bother with all the proprietary stuff, downgrading or weird installations.
4. Just stick with the open source drivers.
Just be aware that these won't generally work for games, especially high end ones.
5. Downgrade Xorg
It may work, it may break your system until you reinstall the correct version. However, if it does work, then you have
fglrx
back.Read the answer here.
Options are far from limited on 16.04, but some of them may not be the best. I recommend trying Oibaf's driver before doing anything else, and only downgrading if you really can't stand the performance and can't use AMDGPU-PRO.