Proprietary Driver for AMD-4670 desktop graphics card

[Arch Parsons]

Is it possible to install a proprietary driver for the AMD/ATI 4670 HD graphics card in Mint 17? I know the AMD site does list linux drivers but I have had problems trying to install it on Mint 16 after downloading the file.

 

[jerz4lunch]

For me, I stay as far away from proprietary drivers as I can.

 

[ryanvade]

Is it possible to install a proprietary driver for the AMD/ATI 4670 HD graphics card in Mint 17? I know the AMD site does list linux drivers but I have had problems trying to install it on Mint 16 after downloading the file.

The 4670 HD series graphics card requires Catalyst 13.1 or newer. So I suggest using the Drivers installer that should be Settings somewhere. If that does not work you will want to install ONE of these packages (I recommend fglrx-updates)
1. fglrx
2. fglrx-updates
3. fglrx-experimental

This can be done either Mint's software manager or via command line like this:

sudo apt-get install fglrx-updates

There is no need to download directly from AMD. The packages in the Mint repositories are pulled directly from AMD and are designed for use on Mint.

IMPORTANT: you may run into problems when installing graphics drivers. Make sure to backup your data.

 

[Arch Parsons]

The 4670 HD series graphics card requires Catalyst 13.1 or newer. So I suggest using the Drivers installer that should be Settings somewhere. If that does not work you will want to install ONE of these packages (I recommend fglrx-updates)
1. fglrx
2. fglrx-updates
3. fglrx-experimental

This can be done either Mint's software manager or via command line like this:

sudo apt-get install fglrx-updates

There is no need to download directly from AMD. The packages in the Mint repositories are pulled directly from AMD and are designed for use on Mint.

IMPORTANT: you may run into problems when installing graphics drivers. Make sure to backup your data.

 

[Arch Parsons]

thanks for the reply. At the end of the extractions I get the mssage: No support for locale: en_CA.utf8 Now Mint 17 fails to boot and recovery mode does not get me past the text login. I need help to configure the x-config which I know nothing about. Thanks in advance for your kind assistance to get back in to Mint 17 now that these changes have been made by running
sudo apt-get install fglrx-updates and getting the error mentioned above. I have no critical personal data inside the linux 17 partition.
.

 

[ryanvade]

thanks for the reply. At the end of the extractions I get the mssage: No support for locale: en_CA.utf8 Now Mint 17 fails to boot and recovery mode does not get me past the text login. I need help to configure the x-config which I know nothing about. Thanks in advance for your kind assistance to get back in to Mint 17 now that these changes have been made by running
sudo apt-get install fglrx-updates and getting the error mentioned above. I have no critical personal data inside the linux 17 partition.
.

Maybe run

aticonfig --initial

 

[Arch Parsons]

Thanks again. aticonfig -- initial comes back with "no supported adapters detected." I started in normal mode and answered no for Would you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem?

 

[Arch Parsons]

Being that I was starting to miss booting into Mint 17, and not knowing how to go from here I decided to delete the partition and install the KDE version. I had the impression that the proprietary driver from AMD was going to be better than the default. I can see now why Jerz4lunch says that he stays away from proprietary drivers.

 

[ryanvade]

Being that I was starting to miss booting into Mint 17, and not knowing how to go from here I decided to delete the partition and install the KDE version. I had the impression that the proprietary driver from AMD was going to be better than the default. I can see now why Jerz4lunch says that he stays away from proprietary drivers.

AMD does not seem to understand how important Linux is. Nvidia and Intel both make certain to have the best drivers they can for Linux (Except for optimus support though I get around that).

 

[Arch Parsons]

Thanks for trying. I will keep that in mind the next time I pick up a graphics card. Increased performance (faster boot time) and popularity of Linux should influence AMD. I compared boot times. My 10 Linus distros varied from as little as 30 seconds for Mint 17 to only 1:17 (the slowest) for Ubuntu 14.04. Windows XP took 4:02, Win 7 took 2:16 and Win 8.1 took 3:30. That's on a 5-year old SATA2 hard drive, of course, not on a SSD. Of course we also need more investment from software producers especially games producers which seem to in turn drive graphics card production and their support.

 

[Yesyesloud]

Radeon HD 4xxx? Actually, you just need to install legacy drivers, that's your only problem here, not AMD.

"Since Catalyst 12.4, AMD has separated its development for Radeon HD 2xxx, 3xxx and 4xxx cards into the legacy Catalyst driver. For Radeon HD 5xxx and newer, there is the regular Catalyst driver. Regardless of the driver you need, you will also need the Catalyst utilities." https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AMD_Catalyst

All my high-end, up-to-date hardware is AMD nowadays. And I must say their Linux support has increased to a point I have no more video issues at all.

 

[ryanvade]

Radeon HD 4xxx? Actually, you just need to install legacy drivers, that's your only problem here, not AMD.

"Since Catalyst 12.4, AMD has separated its development for Radeon HD 2xxx, 3xxx and 4xxx cards into the legacy Catalyst driver. For Radeon HD 5xxx and newer, there is the regular Catalyst driver. Regardless of the driver you need, you will also need the Catalyst utilities." https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AMD_Catalyst

All my high-end, up-to-date hardware is AMD nowadays. And I must say their Linux support has increased to a point I have no more video issues at all.

Side question:
Has AMD fixed the multi-monitor issues?

 

[Yesyesloud]

Side question: Has AMD fixed the multi-monitor issues?

~1 year ago, I used to have to "manually" turn off external monitors through Catalyst Control Center on my laptop (main screen would freeze if I didn't do it prior to disconnecting hdmi cables), yet things worked pretty fine.

This issue is long gone anyway. Plus, never had it on desktop cards.

On my systems, at least, there are no display issues anymore.

I don't know if you're talking about eyefinity-gaming though, I don't have a clue how that sort of crazy stuff is working (I'm a normal person, sorreh eyefinity freaks hehe).

For everything else, multi-head is working smooth (gaming on one monitor, hd video playback on the other etc).

As a piece of unsolicited advice , I may say free drivers are definitely great, but tend to make AMD GPUs/APUs run generally hotter.