Ubuntu 9.04 isn’t for many ATI users.
I can’t believe I’m in the situation I’m in. It’s 2:13 am and I’m copying all of my important files from my Toshiba A215 to an external hard drive so that I can format what is left of my latest 9.04 install. I’ve been waiting patiently since its release a few days ago to try and install Jaunty Jackalope, the latest release of Ubuntu. I hadn’t read any reviews about it yet and I wanted to give it a go as soon as possible to experience the greatest Ubuntu to date. During install, a warning popped up and basically said, “WARNING: The FGLRX driver you’re using for your ATI/Radeon graphics card is no longer compatible with the latest version of X Server. The only way graphics will operate is to use the free and open-source driver available with Ubuntu.” I said sure, no problem. I’m using several other restricted drivers anyways, let’s see how it works. I install it using the “alternate” ISO file available from ubuntu.com and give it a half-hour or so. It reboots and finally finishes the install.
I start to explore when I relize the graphics are horribly garbled. Everything is distorted. I can’t even open the terminal to try to make sense of things because it displays nothing but a techni-colored blur. I do some reading on my desktop and discover that many ATI users are having the same issue with this latest and only driver now available for certain legacy ATI graphics cards. Many are outraged at the fact that AMD/ATI has tagged their hardware as “legacy” and are not providing Linux support for the drivers. I purchased my laptop at the end of 2007 and less than 2 years later, I can’t get support from the company that manufactured my chipset. I’m using a Radeon X1200 card in my laptop. I realize that Nvidia is the champ and all but I didn’t expect this from ATI.
Supposedly ATI is releasing some sort of 9.4 update for its legacy cards but forums are saying that this update didn’t work in its release candidate stages and ATI isn’t planning on making a fix any time soon. So basically, I’m having to reformat my Ubuntu partition as a downgrade isn’t considered stable by myself or the manuals that instruct me on how to do it. Just in case you were wondering, Fedora is also affected by this problem as it uses X Server as well. Some good news though, my wifi worked out of the box and I didn’t have to rebuild the driver. That says something right?
I was extremely displeased to realize that, for now, my laptop will be stuck at the last LTS edition (8.04), but at least this has given me an opportunity to explore other variations of Ubuntu such as Ubuntu Studio edition 8.04. It comes packed with all of the creative tools available for audio, video graphics and is built to allow for a real-time kernel that reduces latency in many applications. It also has support things such as MIDI keyboards, Wacom tablets and RAW image tools. Check it out at www.ubuntustudio.org and be sure to read about the other powerful variations of Ubuntu at Wikipedia.
4 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
It’s known fo about two months that fglrx driver will not support Ubuntu 9.04 or any other later releases using xorg 1.6 or kernel 2.6.29. What you get is yours own fault since you had neglected clear warning. Open-source driver is quite good choice if you don’t play games, otherwise you should stuck with 8.10 release.
I appreciate your comment. Please note that my article was not a negative opinion towards Ubuntu. I am a huge proponent of Ubuntu and I use many open-source drivers. I do not use my Ubuntu desktop for games. I use it for graphic design and web design, my line of work. I desire to use non-proprietary drivers for all of my work in an attempt to get away from the restrictiveness of closed software. Yes, I suppose it is my fault for not researching the status of this driver but I move fast and experiment often to find the workflow that suits my situation. I do not use release candidates because I depend on stable operating systems to get the job done. I fully believed that I would be able to use the FGLRX driver but apparently my laptop’s graphic card is just considered legacy by ATI even though it is less than two years old. I had no knowledge of this except for the forewarning given during install. I’ve recovered however and managed to install an 8.04 LTS edition. I’m back and up running hopefully awaiting the day that ATI might provide a better driver solution. Thanks again.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1133931
That link will take you to the Ubuntu Forums where many users are complaining about the FGLRX driver and just how much it really sucks. Hopefully they will find a solution shortly
Hoewel migraine op elke leeftijd voor het eerst kan optreden, begint dit type hoofdpijn meestal tussen de tien en veertig jaar. Bij de meeste mensen treedt