ATI proprietary drivers not working with an ATI Radeon HD 3400

Question

I am using Lenovo Thinkpad laptop with ATI Radeon HD 3400 Series graphic card. I installed Ubuntu 11.10 64 bit today and tried to install proprietary drivers

1)Hence I installed proprietary drivers displayed on my system (through jockey) .Rebooted my system. Performance is better now but Still compiz is not working.

2)Then I tried the second driver available - 'post-release-updates' but couldn't install due to some error. Hence I opened synaptic and installed fglrx-updates and rebooted my system. Not much change and still compiz didnt work

3)Removed all these packages and downloaded the latest driver from ATI http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.42&lang=English and installed it and rebooted my system. This is worse as I dnt get even launcher or dash this time - I guess I am forcefully logged in to Ubuntu 2-D . Still compiz is not working

Am I doing something silly here ? Is any one facing similar issues with ATI ? Please help Thanks.

Solution 1

If your BIOS supports switchable display it should be disabled in favor of discrete graphics adaptor. The drivers cannot handle switchable graphics.

Solution 2

This is a good solid guide to getting the latest ATI driver installed in ubuntu. http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Oneiric_Installation_Guide#Installing_Catalyst_Manually_.28from_AMD.2FATI.27s_site.29

Has some good troubleshooting tips too.

Comments

[Admin]

As a NVidia user, I only had to download the driver from NVidia.com and install it. Compiz and everything else work perfectly. I have avoided the proprietary drivers. It most likely is ATI/11.10 compatibility issues. Hope you get the problem fixed, no thanks to me though :)

[Admin]

Haha good for you. Yeah support for Nvidia is better than that of ATI :)

[Admin]

Depends on what you want! At least games on wine work nice on ATI, who cares about unity3d anyways!

[mac]

Instead of reverting back to 11.04, I am using open source drivers available by default with 11.10 and I have to say its cool enough :)

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad]

I agree, but I think that's only true for HD5xxx and upwards.

[mac]

did it work for you?

[kikixx]

Yes, perfectly. Currently don't have any issues. Though I am using HD57xx card.