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Installing Catalyst On Ubuntu

Opcode
By Opcode
in Guides and Tutorials
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In this guide I will show you how to install the latest AMD Catalyst 14.12 drivers on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Note: This guide is for the x86_64 flavor.

 

Step 1 - Remove Any Existing Catalyst Drivers

sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx-amdcccle fglrx-core fglrx-dev

Step 2 - Install Dependencies

sudo apt-get install dkms lib32gcc1 libc6-i386

Step 3 - Download

cd /tmpwget --referer="http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Ubuntu%20x86%2064" http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/fglrx_14.501-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_14.01.debwget --referer="http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Ubuntu%20x86%2064" http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/fglrx-core_14.501-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_14.01.debwget --referer="http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Ubuntu%20x86%2064" http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/fglrx-dev_14.501-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_14.01.debwget --referer="http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Ubuntu%20x86%2064" http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/fglrx-amdcccle_14.501-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_14.01.deb 

Step 4 - Install

sudo dpkg -i fglrx*sudo aticonfig --initial

After this reboot your computer.

 

Step 5 - Validation

sudo fglrxinfo

You should see something along these lines.

display: :0 screen: 0OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 5800 SeriesOpenGL version string: 4.4.13283 Compatibility Profile Context 14.501.1003

14.501.1003 is the driver package version for Catalyst 14.12.

 

Building From Main Driver Package (Old Guide)

Step 1 - Remove Any Existing Catalyst Drivers

sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx-amdcccle fglrx-core fglrx-dev

Step 2 - Install Dependencies

sudo apt-get install dh-modaliases dkms execstack lib32gcc1 libc6-i386

Step 3 - Download And Building Packages

cd /tmpwget --referer="http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Linux+x86" http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/amd-catalyst-omega-14.12-linux-run-installers.zipunzip amd-catalyst-omega-14.12-linux-run-installers.zipcd fglrx-14.501.1003sudo sh amd-driver-installer-14.501.1003-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/trusty

Building the packages is going to take a couple of minutes so be patient.

 

Step 4 - Installation

sudo dpkg -i fglrx*sudo aticonfig --initial

After this reboot your computer.

 

Step 5 - Validation

sudo fglrxinfo

You should see something along these lines.

display: :0  screen: 0OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 5800 SeriesOpenGL version string: 4.4.13283 Compatibility Profile Context 14.501.1003

14.501.1003 is the driver package version, in other words 14.12 is installed.

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Posted

Nice guide :D

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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nice

I just broke my Ubuntu the other day with the download from AMD.com... :(

 

is it as "easy" on fedora? I'm staying on Fedora, because of systemd...

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nice

I just broke my Ubuntu the other day with the download from AMD.com... :(

 

is it as "easy" on fedora? I'm staying on Fedora, because of systemd...

Cannot comment on Fedora support as it seems AMD likes to favor supporting the more popular Debian based distributions.

 

I am sure it can be done just not as easily as this.

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can confirm, works in deepin (which is basically ubuntu with a pretty skin)

CPU: AMD Athlon 5350 (2.66 Ghz OC) Motherboard: Asus AM1m-a Memory: Mushkin Radioactive 8GB DDR3-1600 GPU: MSI R7 260 1GD5 OC Storage: Toshiba Hybrid 500GB Case: Cougar Spike PSU: Rosewill Arc 450 OS: Deepin Linux 2014

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can confirm, works in deepin (which is basically ubuntu with a pretty skin)

Moving from the Catalyst version provided in the Ubuntu repositories (13.350.1) I noticed a huge gain in performance moving to the official 14.9 package. So I suggest anyone running an Ubuntu based distribution to upgrade to the latest drivers for optimal performance.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Hey Opcode,

 

I did the tuorial and all i got was errors. This is right into a fresh install of Ubuntu-gnome 14.04.1.

 

 

http://pastebin.com/7eqy25Pg

 

 

Do i not have all the programs and dependencies installed?

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Hey Opcode,

 

I did the tuorial and all i got was errors. This is right into a fresh install of Ubuntu-gnome 14.04.1.

 

 

http://pastebin.com/7eqy25Pg

 

 

Do i not have all the programs and dependencies installed?

Try running the following to force install required dependencies.

sudo apt-get -f install

You're missing the dkms package. I cannot guarantee this guide will work on other Ubuntu based distributions.

 

Also thanks for noticing that. I had this package missing from my original post for some reason.

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Tried it on Xubuntu yet? @Opcode

I only run Ubuntu so I haven't a clue if it will work the same way without problems on other distributions even ones based on Ubuntu.

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I'll try it later today. Thanks

Post back and let us know if it goes smoothly or not for you. This may help people decide ahead of time about trying to install it on the same distribution.

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Opcode, I reinstalled my OS and reran the Tut up top and it installed OK. But there are three issues I'm having:

 

                         1)    There is a black border around my screen.

                         2)     Its weird, i have two catalyst icons in my application launcher. One requests my password then closes after imputing. the other opens the catalyst console but is not accessible without sudo. They do not work in conjunction.

                         3)     There is no sound out of my videocard (hdmi). i have gone to my bios and made changes to my settings as needed and indicated on other google searches.

 

I know you have provided a tutorial for installing the drivers but no neccasarily responsible for troubleshooting but if you have any answers or imputs to the items above it would be appreciated.

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Opcode, I reinstalled my OS and reran the Tut up top and it installed OK. But there are three issues I'm having:

 

                         1)    There is a black boarder around my screen.

                         2)     Its weird, i have two catalyst icons in my application launcher. One requests my password then closes after imputing. the other opens the catalyst console but is not accessible without sudo. They do not work in conjunction.

                         3)     There is no sound out of my videocard (hdmi). i have gone to my bios and made changes to my settings as needed and indicated on other google searches.

 

I know you have provided a tutorial for installing the drivers but no neccasarily responsible for troubleshooting but if you have any answers or imputs to the items above it would be appreciated.

1. Not sure what exactly what you mean. Take a screenshot.

2. This is normal I have the same. I believe one is only there for prompting for sudo access if Catalyst needs elevated privileges.

3. This may fix it if you run the open source Radeon driver. As for fixing Catalyst I haven't a clue. There are bugs submitted for this problem.

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Edit this line.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

To this.

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="radeon.audio=1"

Save and close and then run.

sudo update-grub

Reboot and check your audio settings to see if any changes.

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Opcode, that fixed the sound. Awesome. If i find a fix for the black border i will post the fix here.

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Opcode, that fixed the sound. Awesome. If i find a fix for the black border i will post the fix here.

What do you mean by black border?

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There is a border around my monitor about 15-20mm that is not being utilized. Like the output is smaller than the actual size of the monitor. Though, in grub it's full screen.

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There is a border around my monitor about 15-20mm that is not being utilized. Like the output is smaller than the actual size of the monitor. Though, in grub it's full screen.

Go into Catalyst and navigate to Display Manager and select your monitor. Go to adjustments and set scaling to 0% and see if that changes anything.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Updated guide to reflect the new 14.12 Catalyst driver. I don't have a bare Ubuntu 14.04.1 installation to test it on so...

 

You can view my Unigine Valley benchmarks here. Nothing significant in terms of performance over 14.9 for VLIW based cards.

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What if I got something like this instead? I've always found it difficult to uninstall the drivers correctly.

display: :0 screen: 0OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series OpenGL version string: 4.4.13283 Compatibility Profile Context 14.301.1001

I guess I'll try again and edit my post with the results.

 

 

Edit: Yeah, it stayed the same anyways, oh well. At least OpenGL is updated, right?

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What if I got something like this instead? I've always found it difficult to uninstall the drivers correctly.

display: :0 screen: 0OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series OpenGL version string: 4.4.13283 Compatibility Profile Context 14.301.1001

I guess I'll try again and edit my post with the results.

 

 

Edit: Yeah, it stayed the same anyways, oh well. At least OpenGL is updated, right?

Seems as if you're still running the 14.9 drivers. I didn't notice any performance improvements with my VLIW based card (HD 5870). The update from 14.9 to 14.12 really isn't going to offer you that much when also running a VLIW based card. The performance gains for the Omega drivers are solely for GCN based cards. The only logical reason to update would be to resolve any issues with previous drivers. Have you removed Catalyst and reverted back to the open source drivers, rebooted, and then attempted to install 14.12? Make sure you restore your original xorg.conf file before you reboot tho.

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Seems as if you're still running the 14.9 drivers. I didn't notice any performance improvements with my VLIW based card (HD 5870). The update from 14.9 to 14.12 really isn't going to offer you that much when also running a VLIW based card. The performance gains for the Omega drivers are solely for GCN based cards. The only logical reason to update would be to resolve any issues with previous drivers. Have you removed Catalyst and reverted back to the open source drivers, rebooted, and then attempted to install 14.12? Make sure you restore your original xorg.conf file before you reboot tho.

I haven't messed with the drivers since that day, but sure, I'll give it another shot. I don't really have much experience with uninstalling drivers on linux, I only have experience with the install process.

I'll come back to edit this post with results, hopefully within the same day, since I'm really forgetful.

 

Edit: Oh hey, got it properly updated. Thanks for the assistance, by the way.

display: :0  screen: 0OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series OpenGL version string: 4.4.13283 Compatibility Profile Context 14.501.1003
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  • 4 weeks later...
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Updated the guide as AMD has now provided built packages for 14.04 LTS which will help shave off a bunch of the time it takes manually building them.

 

If anyone runs into any problems with the updated tutorial let me know.

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Do you think it can be done safely on ElementaryOS? This is based of ubuntu. I tried it with different method, but recked my linux.

I imagine it shouldn't be much of a problem to figure out. Tho keep in mind that if you run "Luna" that it is based on 12.04 LTS. So you would need to switch over to using the packages built for 12.04 instead like below.

cd /tmpwget --referer="http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Ubuntu%20x86%2064" http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/fglrx_14.501-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_12.04.4.debwget --referer="http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Ubuntu%20x86%2064" http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/fglrx-core_14.501-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_12.04.4.debwget --referer="http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Ubuntu%20x86%2064" http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/fglrx-dev_14.501-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_12.04.4.debwget --referer="http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop?os=Ubuntu%20x86%2064" http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/fglrx-amdcccle_14.501-0ubuntu1_amd64_UB_12.04.4.deb

No guarantee's it will work but it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out. Worst case scenario is dependencies are missing which you can just resolve with.

sudo apt-get -f install
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Nice guide and i'll try installing catalyst on ubuntu mate laptop :)

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  • 3 weeks later...
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OK, I followed your instructions to the letter, rebooted and I just get a blank purple desktop and no login screen at all, I even hear the Ubuntu boot sound around a second after the desktop appears.

I'm running dual R9 280X cards on Ubuntu 14.10.

Help

 

EDIT

 

Nevermind, i fixed it by swapping my DVI cable to my second GPU????

 

Everything is working OK so far, now its installing Steam and test some games out :)

Main Rig:-

Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS |

 

Server:-

Intel NUC running Server 2019 + Synology DSM218+ with 2 x 4TB Toshiba NAS Ready HDDs (RAID0)

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