Oneiric 64-bit and AMD/ATI proprietary drivers

[O. Sinclair]

On 11/01/12 21:37, Mark Greenwood wrote:
>
> On 11 Jan 2012, at 18:20, O. Sinclair wrote:
>
>> On 11/01/12 17:48, Mark Greenwood wrote:
>>>
>>> On 11 Jan 2012, at 14:43, Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 9:17 AM, O. Sinclair<o.sinclair at gmail.com>   wrote:
>>>>> On 11/01/12 14:06, Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 6:24 AM, O. Sinclair<o.sinclair at gmail.com>    wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Am about to officially give up.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I have an HP Pavillion dm4 laptop with the dreaded hybrid graphics, in my
>>>>>>> case in Intel integrated and an ATI HD5450 "discreet" card.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 11.04 I used 32-bit PAE and there it worked. But as I have 4Gb RAM
>>>>>>> decided to opt for 64-bit when installing 11.10.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Most things work well, there are some fairly odd apps that are only
>>>>>>> 32-bit
>>>>>>> but I have no major problems (except new KDEPIM but that is separate
>>>>>>> issue).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> However - installing AMD/ATI Catalyst drivers fail one way or the other.
>>>>>>> If
>>>>>>> I do from "additional drivers" I just get a message it fails. If I do
>>>>>>> from
>>>>>>> Muon dito. If I use cli command apt-get or aptitude it can go all the way
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> configuration.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> And that is where I get stuck whether I use downloaded from AMD package,
>>>>>>> build packages, run the installer or whatever I do. Have been thru
>>>>>>> countless
>>>>>>> sites with instructions and forums.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The last step here is normally "aticonfig --initial -f" with or without
>>>>>>> -f.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I either get an error "PowerXpress error: Cannot stat
>>>>>>> '/usr/lib64/fglrx/switchlibGL': No such file or directory" or "no
>>>>>>> supported
>>>>>>> adapter present".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> So finally my question here: has anyone managed to get the hybrid
>>>>>>> graphics
>>>>>>> with ATI/AMD working in 11.10 64-bit or are there ohters who have spent
>>>>>>> (too
>>>>>>> much) time installing and failing?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, I have installed them.  I just installed these packages (using
>>>>>> aptitude, should work with apt-get):
>>>>>>
>>>>>> fglrx-updates
>>>>>> fglrx-updates-dev
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you tried to install fglrx package from ATI (ie, manual install),
>>>>>> you will have uninstall it first, and then cleanup the mess it leaves
>>>>>> behind, basically, some broken symlinks... I had a problem with that,
>>>>>> after I removed "manually installed" drivers, I was unable to install
>>>>>> the official packages.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Oh, don't forget to install (if not already installed):
>>>>>> linux-headers-generic (or whatever linux-headers you need for your
>>>>>> current kernel), remember, this *have to* be the headers for your
>>>>>> running kernel, and about any linux-headers will satisfy fglrx-updates
>>>>>> dependency, but you need the one corresponding to your kernel, or it
>>>>>> will fail.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't know on your system, but on mine, aptitude shows "duplicated"
>>>>>> packages names, it looks like the "duplicated" is the 32 bits version,
>>>>>> but I have had odd issues (like conflicts with *a lot* of packages
>>>>>> when I try to install most of these), make sure to pick the correct
>>>>>> one.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Now, I have had bad experiences with so called "hybrid graphics", in
>>>>>> my case a ION-based netbook... in the end, I had to disable "discrete"
>>>>>> graphics and leave only Intel enabled (because otherwise the netbook
>>>>>> would get too hot, and drain battery real fast).
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks, unfortunately exactly the same outcome:
>>>>>
>>>>> "PowerXpress error: Cannot stat'/usr/lib64/fglrx/switchlibGL': No such file
>>>>> or directory"
>>>>>
>>>>> and for sure said "switchlibGL" is non-existent.
>>>>
>>>> Interesting enough, this exists on my system, but here:
>>>>
>>>> /usr/lib/fglrx/switchlibGL
>>>>
>>>
>>> And I think that's they key to the whole problem.
>>>
>>> Up until recently, a 64-bit system has /usr/lib64 for 64-bit libs and /usr/lib for 32-bit libs. This was changed so that on an up-to-date 64 bit system, /usr/lib holds 64 bit libs and /usr/lib32 has 32 bit libs. There is no /usr/lib64 on a recent ubuntu system.
>>>
>>> I don't understand why the fglrx driver is trying to install things in /usr/lib64 - it shouldn't be. However you might be able to make it install IF you don't already have a /usr/lib64 directory
>>>
>>> sudo ln -s /usr/lib /usr/lib64
>>>
>>> then try the install again.
>>>
>>
>> Hm, I reverted to radeon once more but when I check I DO have a /usr/lib64/fglrx directory full of stuff - but no /usr/lib/fglrx
>>
>> should I perhaps just erase the whole directory and try again?
>
> Hmmm. I'm not sure. It might work with the symlinking suggestion I gave, but I don't have an ATI card and have never owned one. I'm not sure what to suggest. If it were me I'd give it a try but I'm not sure I'd advise others to do the same….
>

Well I gave it a shot but it just resulted in other errors. I now give 
up, guess I consider it broken in Oneiric 64-bit and stay with OSS 
drivers for now. No switching but hey, it never worked that well with 
Catalyst driver either.

Thanks for help and pointers!

Sinclair