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This guide shows you how to use the open source Radeon driver for some ATI/AMD graphics cards and APUs, which is part of the xserver-xorg-video-ati package.
This driver provides 2D and 3D acceleration in your video hardware. For the most recent releases of Ubuntu (and its flavours) this driver is usually as fast as the closed-source, proprietary fglrx driver (called AMD Catalyst) from AMD Inc. Furthermore the Radeon driver supports some older chipsets that fglrx does not.
The Radeon driver is already pre-installed in Ubuntu.
First, check your graphic card name and chipset:
It should report something like this for your graphics card and/or APU:
If the report shows two different hardware devices, then you probably have a 'hybrid graphics' system, with an iGP (integrated graphics processor inside the CPU) and a dedicated GPU.
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and newer: for some most recent graphics cards (R9 285, R9 380/380X, R9 M395X, R9 Nano/Fury/FuryX, RX 460/470/480, RX 550/560/570/580..) and APUs (Carrizo, Stoney), the open-source AMDGPU driver is enabled by default. For Ubuntu 16.04 LTS AMDGPU-Pro hybrid driver is also available to download here (please read the release notes for known problems and limitations).
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS: if you have Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with Linux kernel 4.4.0 (HWE stack Xenial), you can't install the proprietary fglrx/Catalyst driver. However the open source AMDGPU driver is available to install through the xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu package.
These cards will not run Ubuntu's Unity desktop with 3D acceleration. They will still run Unity, but the CPU will be used for basic drawing and performance may suffer. If you have one of these cards, a lighter desktop (such as XFCE or LXDE, found in Xubuntu and Lubuntu respectively) is recommended.
Chipset | Graphics cards |
R100 | Radeon 7200 |
RV100 | Radeon 7000(VE), M6, RN50/ES1000 |
RS100 | Radeon IGP320(M) |
RV200 | Radeon 7500, M7, FireGL 7800 |
RS200 | Radeon IGP330(M)/IGP340(M) |
RS250 | Radeon Mobility 7000 IGP |
R200 | Radeon 8500, 9100, FireGL 8800/8700 |
RV250 | Radeon 9000PRO/9000, M9 |
RV280 | Radeon 9200PRO/9200/9200SE/9250, M9+ |
RS300 | Radeon 9100 IGP |
RS350 | Radeon 9200 IGP |
All these ATI/AMD cards have good 3D acceleration support. This is not an exhaustive list.
Check the version of Ubuntu you have installed:
Ubuntu 16.04 and newer releases: look at the 16.04+ column.
Ubuntu 14.04:
kernel Linux 4.4.0-xx-generic (HWE stack Xenial), look at the 16.04+ column.
kernel Linux 3.13.0-xx-generic, look at the 14.04 column.
Ubuntu 12.04:
kernel Linux 3.13.0-xx-generic (HWE stack Trusty), look at the 14.04 column.
kernel Linux 3.2.0-xx-generic, look at the 12.04 column.
To know which version of the Linux kernel you have installed, type this text in a terminal window: uname -r |
In Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with the 3.2.0-xx-generic Linux kernel, you might encounter overheating problems of the graphics card, which are caused by the too old Radeon driver installed in Ubuntu. In this case, you can install the Trusty Hardware Enablement Stack, which brings new versions of Linux kernel and Radeon driver. This generally solves the problem. |
Chipset | Graphics cards and APUs | 12.04 | 14.04 | 16.04+ |
RS400/RS480 | Radeon XPRESS 200(M)/1100 IGP | |||
R300 | Radeon 9700PRO/9700/9500PRO/9500/9600TX, FireGL X1/Z1 | |||
R350 | Radeon 9800PRO/9800SE/9800, FireGL X2 | |||
R360 | Radeon 9800XT | |||
RV350 | Radeon 9600PRO/9600SE/9600/9550, M10/M11, FireGL T2 | |||
RV360 | Radeon 9600XT | |||
RV370 | Radeon X300, M22 | |||
RV380 | Radeon X600, M24 | |||
RV410 | Radeon X700, M26 PCIE | |||
R420 | Radeon X800 AGP | |||
R423/R430 | Radeon X800, M28 PCIE | |||
R480/R481 | Radeon X850 PCIE/AGP | |||
RV505/RV515/RV516/RV550 | Radeon X1300/X1400/X1500/X1550/X2300 | |||
R520 | Radeon X1800 | |||
RV530/RV560 | Radeon X1600/X1650/X1700 | |||
RV570/R580 | Radeon X1900/X1950 | |||
RS600/RS690/RS740 | Radeon X1200/X1250/X2100 | |||
R600 | Radeon HD 2900 | |||
RV610/RV630 | Radeon HD 2400/2600/2700/4200/4225/4250 | |||
RV620/RV635 | Radeon HD 3410/3430/3450/3470/3650/3670 | |||
RV670 | Radeon HD 3690/3850/3870 | |||
Crysis 3 pc patch 1.4. RS780/RS880 | Radeon HD 3100/3200/3300/4100/4200/4250/4290 | |||
RV710/RV730 | Radeon HD 4330/4350/4550/4650/4670/5145/5165/530v/545v/560v/565v | |||
RV740/RV770/RV790 | Radeon HD 4770/4730/4830/4850/4860/4870/4890 | |||
CEDAR | Radeon HD 5430/5450/6330/6350/6370 | |||
REDWOOD | Radeon HD 5550/5570/5650/5670/5730/5750/5770/6530/6550/6570 | |||
JUNIPER | Radeon HD 5750/5770/5830/5850/5870/6750/6770/6830/6850/6870 | |||
CYPRESS | Radeon HD 5830/5850/5870 | |||
HEMLOCK | Radeon HD 5970 | |||
PALM | Radeon HD 6310/6250 | |||
SUMO/SUMO2 | Radeon HD 6370/6380/6410/6480/6520/6530/6550/6620 | |||
BARTS | Radeon HD 6790/6850/6870/6950/6970/6990 | |||
TURKS | Radeon HD 6570/6630/6650/6670/6730/6750/6770 | |||
CAICOS | Radeon HD 6430/6450/6470/6490 | |||
CAYMAN | Radeon HD 6950/6970/6990 | |||
ARUBA | Radeon HD 7000 series | |||
TAHITI | Radeon HD 7900 series | |||
PITCAIRN | Radeon HD 7800 series | |||
VERDE | Radeon HD 7700 series | |||
OLAND | Radeon HD 8000 series | |||
HAINAN | Radeon HD 8800 series | |||
BONAIRE | Radeon HD 7790 series | |||
KAVERI | KAVERI APUs | |||
KABINI | KABINI APUs | |||
HAWAII | Radeon R9 290/290X/390/390X | |||
MULLINS (Puma/Puma+ cores, GCN GPU) | MULLINS/BEEMA/CARRIZO-L APUs |
Notes
*1: in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with Linux kernel 3.13.0 if you find problems with the most recent graphics cards (Radeon Rx 2xx/3xx) and APUs (KABINI/KAVERI), try to install the Xenial HWE stack in Ubuntu 14.04; this should solve your problems. As an alternative, you can install a newer release of Ubuntu.
To look for boot messages/errors, check
To see your OpenGL information, you can run the commands below. Make sure your OpenGL renderer string does not say 'software rasterizer' or 'llvmpipe' because that would mean you have no 3D hardware acceleration:
If you've previously installed the ATI binary/proprietary driver (a.k.a Catalyst/fglrx), you need to make sure it's fully purged before trying to use the open-source ati/radeon driver. See this page
No configuration is necessary for ATI driver in the modern versions of Ubuntu. You can safely take away your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and your computer should run fine.
Check the manpage of the Radeon driver for advanced options.
Ubuntu 14.04 and newer: HDMI audio should work automatically.
Ubuntu 12.04: users have to enable HDMI audio manually by passing the radeon.audio=1 kernel parameter. It can be done with the following command:
Ubuntu Precise/12.04 users should also note that they may need a newer kernel (>= 3.5.x) to enable HDMI audio on later cards.
For the most recent ATI/AMD graphic cards supported by the Radeon driver, DPM (Dynamic Power Management) should work automatically without additional steps.
Instead if you notice overheating problems and/or you have an old Radeon HD graphic card, you can enable DPM by adding a boot parameter. This should greatly help power consumption, especially when idle. To do so, edit /etc/default/grub and add the 'radeon.dpm=1' to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line, so it would look something like:
After you save/quit the text editor, update grub:
Power management was one of the weak spots of the open-source driver prior to kernel 3.11.x. If you have a laptop that's getting too hot, try setting the power management profile to low.
BinaryDriverHowto/AMD - The Wiki page for the proprietary AMD/ATI driver 'fglrx' which also offers 3D acceleration, and works on newer cards than the 'radeon' driver. Since it's closed-source, only AMD can work on it and give efficient support, and the open-source community can generally not help you with problems.
AMDGPU-Driver - The Wiki page for AMD's AMDGPU open source driver for GCN (Graphics Core Next) GPUs
AMDGPU-PRO-Driver - The Wiki page for AMD's AMDGPU-PRO hybrid proprietary/open-source driver for GCN (Graphics Core Next) GPUs
Arch Linux ati driver documentation - includes TV-out information
RadeonFeature - Radeon feature table
CategoryHardware