Linux GPU Support

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
1

Hello friends.
I've been thinking about trying out linux for quite a while now, and I finally decided to install it.
However, I encountered a problem. Ubuntu won't boot into GUI. I managed to get it running in command line, so I assume the reason for this problem is my ATI Radeon HD 4550. AMD driver for Ubuntu 14.04 doesn't support it.
I was wondering, is there a way to get my system running?

Also, I've heard a while ago that nvidia GPUs are much better supported than AMD ones on linux. Is that still true? I'm planning to build a new PC, and I would really like to get the most out of it, even on linux.

2

Yes, Nvidia GPUs get much better support under Linux as long as you are using the proprietary drivers. If you are really hellbent on using that ATI card, you could try an older version of Ubuntu like 12.04 or 10.04. Keep in mind that 10.04 reaches the end of it's support cycle later this year.

1 Like
3

There's Open Source supported, and Vendor supported.

Intel has only open source drivers which are excellent (the gold standard OSS)
AMD has good-great proprietary drivers and good-great open-source drivers
Nvidia has excellent proprietary drivers (the gold standard proprietary) and barebones open source (just enough to give you a picture sometimes)

4

AMD has dropped support for anything before HD5xxx. Theres some legacy drivers for Ubuntu 13.10 but not 14.04

5

I've always used Nvidia graphic cards on my Linux PCs, and I've never really had any problems because of compatibility. Before you build a new PC, check out the list of supported devices on AMD/Nvidia homepage. At least, on Nvidia homepage there should be a list for each driver version and the card that it supports.

Don't always assume that the newest graphic cards on the markets are supported. In the early days of 750ti, it was no supported by the Nvidia drivers.

6

Seems like Ubuntu also dropped support for them. But the radeon drivers for the R700 series should work reasonably well http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/RadeonFeature/

Drivers support is imo Intel > AMD > Nvidia for open drivers

This year should see good support for the new line of AMD cards with the new drivers that will come out.

7

In case people are wondering where this came from, AMD will be re-writing their driver for Linux (amdgpu) which will support everything r9 285 and newer.

1 Like
8

Well, yeah. It'll have exactly the same support the radeon kernel driver already has. It supports (pretty much) everything that Catalyst supports. There won't be some magic and then things are suddenly better, they just make a new driver to be able to break compatibility.

9

Thanks for all of the replies.
Many of you mentioned open source drivers. In what scenario would I not use proprietary drivers?

10

weird, my school pc's 4850 still work without legacy drivers just fine

11

"With the Radeon HD 2000 (R600) through Radeon HD 4000 series (RV770) support going away, this means for all future major Linux distribution updates (Ubuntu 12.10, Fedora 18, etc), there is no option but to use the open-source Radeon Linux driver. With new X.Org Server releases and Linux kernel updates, the Catalyst driver before the support is discontinued from mainline (Catalyst ~12.6; fglrx 8.97 will be the last) will no longer be compatible. It is as simple as that"

Source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_catalyst_legacy2&num=1

13

you could always grab the source for the driver for that card and compile it for your kernel.