I just started using Ubuntu yesterday and i really can't figure out how to update my GPU drivers i currently have a radeon 7870 in my PC i really don't know/understand much about Ubuntu yet so all the help i can get would be appreciated
p.s. sorry if this is in the wrong place im a first time user of this website but a long time fan of the youtube channel
The easiest way is to go to device manager under administration and choose version you would like to install from repos.
What you should NOT do, is to download driver from AMD website and run via terminal and reboot, because that may lead towards black screen, and brake your distribution.
If you however, want to install fglrx driver from AMD website, best way is to download version for your distro (in your case Ubuntu (64bit probably), extract in temp directory, open terminal, type "sudo " (with space after) and drag ".run" file into terminal, remove quotes if needed, and press enter. When installation is finished, do not reboot, but type "sudo aticonfig --initial" in terminal, and then reboot.
However, if everything works well, i would advice not to use this 2nd option, but use repo drivers instead.
If you have installed your driver from Drivers application (¨additional drivers¨ in ubuntu) and chosen the fglrx-updates then any new driver updates will appear with all the rest in the update manager. So you do not have to do anything yourself.
The dirver you will install by this application are tested by ubuntu as working so they should be fine but they are a bit older than the ones you will find on the site as the process of validating takes some time for Canonical to complete. They are usually quite fine and again the updates appear automatically with the rest without you doing anything extra.
If on the other hand you want the latest drivers for some reason then you have to download them from the AMD site and follow the instructions they give. Its not much different than in windows, with just a few extra steps. If you later want to update the drivers from the site you will have to remove the old ones and redo the same process with the newer ones.
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Either way is fine. From the repos I stil had to run aticonfig --initial after reboot cause my screen was black. And that was going via the repos as every0ne seems to like to push. I still prefer going via the website.
Thanks for all of your help! I believe I got them updated is there anyway to check whether I did for sure?
run the command
dmesg | grep fglrx | grep moduleyou should get a output like this
module loaded - fglrx X.XX.X [Mmm dd yyyy]The Xs will be your module version that is currently loaded.
Take the number you got and reference it here
http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Category%3aReleases
That will relate your number to a Catalyst Package.
EDIT, you can relate the driver number to the catalyst pacakge through the AMD Windows Drivers RSS Feed.
http://www2.ati.com/rss/catalyst.rss
Ctrl+f and search, then filter. : D
Note that the latest drivers are only available on Ubuntu 15.04. The drivers on the AMD website are old. I think fglrx was backported from 15.04 to 14.04, but I'm not sure about 14.10.
When I type in this command
dmesg | grep fglrx | grep modulemy terminal does not do anything after i press enter
what am i doing wrong?
Give me like an Hour and I will be home, I am not using FGLRX on my work computer.
I want to run that command at home and see what happens.
OK I ran the command and I got this, apparently I have some problems with my drivers. X D.
see how the command is after the ~$ on my screen but on yours it is aligned left with ~$.
I would reopen terminal hit enter a few times to get the command window to look like this,
Then type
dmesg | grep fglrx | grep moduleso your terminal looks like this
beau@Scourge:~$ dmesg | grep fglrx | grep moduleLMK what happens then.
I think you are still using the Xorg open source drivers.
run this
glxinfo | grep -i vendorThis is a sample output on my machine.
LMK what that gives you, I think the other command was not pulling anything because you are still using the open drivers.
Ok Yes!!
That makes sense now.
Go to your launcher "Start Button" and type Additional Drivers.
This is mine with FGLRX installed as a sample.
Post what yours looks like, you may simply need to select it and reboot.
:) great so this is what mine looks like to begin
and this is what I selected is this right before I restart?
You can go with fglrx or fglrx-updates, but yes that is the Idea.
Ok thank you so much for the help! :)
Don't thank me yet reboot and check that settings again to make sure it takes. And to make sure it boots. lol.
umm after i clicked apply changes it says this and reselects the top one 
Hmmmmm,
If you clicked the FGLRX and hit apply, try rebooting and then go back in.
It may just be the GUI bugging a bit and swaping back to the current in-use drivers. The PC has to reboot to change the video drivers.