Installing Ubuntu 13.04 on a Toshiba Satellite C55-A laptop

[Nils Kassube]

Jim Byrnes wrote:
> Just got the above mentioned Toshiba laptop yesterday.  Would like to
> install Ubuntu on it next to Windows 8 without activating Windows 8.

> It booted but not to the normal screen.  I saw a non-graphical screen
> with 3 selections Install Ubuntu  -  Try Ubuntu & Test media. I choose
> Try Ubuntu and it booted to a command line:

> Obviously a graphics problem.
> 
> Specs say: Processor and Graphics
>             AMD Quad Core A6-5200 Accelerated Processor with AMD
> Radeon™ HD 8400 Graphics
>             2.0 GHz, 2MB L2 Cache
> 
> Googling on the HD 8400 and linux produced this hit:
> 
> http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDCatalyst13-8LINBetaDrive
> r.aspx
> 
> Which talks of a beta driver that supports this chip.
> 
> So it seems there is no way to test Ubuntu on this machine before
> installing it. Is that correct?

I think you shouldn't expect that it would work after you installed this 
version of Ubuntu. If the LiveDVD doesn't support your graphics 
hardware, it is unlikely that it would work with the installed system.

As your graphics hardware is rather new, I would suggest to try the beta 
version of Ubuntu 13.10 or wait until the release of 13.10 (next week?). 
The article above talks about kernel 3.10 support and Ubuntu 13.10 uses 
kernel 3.11, so it may work with Ubuntu 13.10.


Nils