G'day djchandler, It sounds like you are in a bad situation. I'm not sure if my comments will help, but I thought I'd try anyway.
According to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack if you install the 12.04.0 or 12.04.1 point release and update you will remain on the original Precise stack and not be updated to the Quantal or Raring HWE stacks. Old fglrx drivers wont work with new kernels, but old drivers and old kernels should work together just fine, so I'm not sure what is going on there - can you provide more details? The above problem not withstanding, it's not really Ubuntu's fault that support for your older hardware is diminishing, but rather it is AMD's fault. Perhaps instead we can get the open source Radeon driver working for you. The Linux 3.6 kernel finally enabled Radeon PCI Express 2.0 support by default and the Linux 3.8 kernel introduces a-synchronous DMA support. These changes have been demonstrated to make the open source Radeon driver much faster. HDMI audio support is also re-enabled by default and can be turned on and off with xrandr. The 3.11 kernel finally introduced full Radeon power management (DPM) support which was further refined and enabled for more hardware in the 3.13 kernel used in Ubuntu 14.04 "Trusty Tahr". This latter item should make your laptop run cooler, although if it's 5+ years old dust buildup could be part of the problem. Either dismantle it (I presume it's out of warranty) and clean out the dust or just run a vacuum cleaner nozzle along the external air vents. Your older hardware does not need updated Radeon firmware files for DPM. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to fglrx-installer in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1058040 Title: fglrx-installer not working with AMD Radeon/Mobility Radeon HD 2000-4000 cards in Quantal+ Status in Release Notes for Ubuntu: Invalid Status in “fglrx-installer” package in Ubuntu: Won't Fix Bug description: Following the AMD decision to change to a new driver support model for Radeon™ HD 4000, HD 3000 and HD 2000 series cards for the legacy 12.6 driver as per http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/legacy/Pages/legacy-radeon_linux.aspx , fglrx-installer installs non-working drivers for users of the cards: AMD Radeon HD 4000 Series AMD Radeon HD 3000 Series AMD Radeon HD 2000 Series AMD Radeon HD Series AGP AMD Mobility Radeon HD 4000 Series AMD Mobility Radeon HD 3000 Series AMD Mobility Radeon HD 2000 Series I suggest the addition of an fglrx-legacy package to install the AMD legacy drivers for users with older cards or patch the current code base for use with these cards. One of the outstanding issues for addressing this bug is AMD currently does not plan to support XServer 1.13 (for Ubuntu the package is xserver-xorg-core) for the legacy 12.6 driver, which Quantal uses: apt-cache policy xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-core: Installed: 2:1.13.0-0ubuntu6 Candidate: 2:1.13.0-0ubuntu6 Version table: *** 2:1.13.0-0ubuntu6 0 500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main i386 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status Output for fglrx 9.00 [1]: # lspci|grep VGA 01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS780L [Radeon HD 3000] # modprobe fglrx FATAL: Error inserting fglrx (/lib/modules/3.5.0-15-generic/updates/dkms/fglrx.ko): No such device # dmesg|tail -n3 [ 6785.693869] [fglrx] Maximum main memory to use for locked dma buffers: 7132 MBytes. [ 6785.694089] [fglrx:firegl_init_device_list] *ERROR* No supported display adapters were found [ 6785.694091] [fglrx:firegl_init_module] *ERROR* firegl_init_devices failed # dpkg --list|grep fglrx ii fglrx 2:9.000-0ubuntu1 amd64 Video driver for the AMD graphics accelerators ii fglrx-amdcccle 2:9.000-0ubuntu1 amd64 Catalyst Control Center for the AMD graphics accelerators [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer- updates/+bug/1032672/comments/34 !!!!!!!! WARNING !!!!!!! The following workaround has produced mixed results and left some users with temporarily broken systems. It is not recommended for production systems or novice users that are not comfortable with basic console/non-GUI recovery. USE AT OWN RISK. WORKAROUND: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:makson96/fglrx && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade && sudo apt-get -y install fglrx-legacy This workaround will downgrade X to 1.12 and install the AMD legacy fglrx 8.97 (Catalyst 12.6). To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-release-notes/+bug/1058040/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
