ATI Radeon HD 5770 is not Linux Compatible Despite Advertisement

[bridgman]

Xorg version, kernel version, file locations, packaging system are the main ones.

[RealNC]

If one would believe the maintainers of fglrx on non-supported distros, there's also the problem of fglrx being packaged and using hardcoded paths in a very brain damaged way (usually a sign of the ones responsible in the Catalyst Linux team not really knowing what they are doing), making it difficult for those distros to package it themselves correctly.

[rohcQaH]

My 5770 works on gentoo with both catalyst 9.11 and 9.12. Installed, rebooted, worked without further trickery. Now fglrx isn't the best driver I've ever encountered and I plan to ditch it for the OS drivers at the earliest possible moment, but it works.

I don't see why you claim that your card has linux support? Surely AMD cannot be held responsible for claims by random forum users, can it?
Now I'd like you to take a close look at the box you bought. Mine says under system requirements "Windows XP / Vista / 7". Does yours say something different?

Unless you have a contract with AMD (and I really doubt you do), AMD is in no way required to help you with anything. fglrx isn't made for you or me, it's made for corporate customers who actually *do* have a contract with AMD. fglrx is offered to consumers as well, but AMD doesn't guarantee anything. You didn't pay for fglrx, right?
So when an AMD employee tells you "fglrx isn't supported", that's why. The rep probably didn't know how to help you (and if your support ticket was as informative as this thread, I cannot blame him), so since he didn't have to he got rid of you.

What you *can* do is to politely ask on forums for help, providing as much relevant information as possible. You *can* also submit good bug reports, they're at least read (and then handled by priority as AMD sees fit).

Or you could rant, make false claims and pout. Think it'll help?


About your claims about ATIs proprietary attitude, I'd like to remind you about the open source drivers. THOSE are the drivers meant for consumers (i.e. you). Those are the drivers meant to "tailor to the compatibility needs of their customers". But they're not ready for evergreen yet (which is a fact that's well communicated by AMD).

If you bought a new card that has no official linux support, only a linux driver that isn't even meant for you or your distribution and actually not supported for you at all, then that's a risk you took. That's unfortunatly a risk we linux users always take, with almost every hardware, and that's probably bitten every one of as at one time. Bit me twice with nvidia GPUs and once with the NIC of an nForce chip. Compared to those three, getting fglrx to work was a breeze.

[Kano]

Do you know a nvidia customer with a contract to get drivers for a newly purchased card? That ati model is just pure crap!

[energyman]

I replaced my 3870 with a 5770 just after christmas. I took one card out, put the other in, booted, it worked.

Can't be easier than that.

[Kano]

@dartmouth

You can even test it in live mode with Kanotix Excalibur.

sudo -i
update-scripts-kanotix.sh
install-fglrx-debian.sh

will give you latest 10-1 driver currently. If you get a watermark reboot again and do:

sudo -i
update-scripts-kanotix.sh
install-fglrx-debian.sh -z

then execute the commands above and press ctrl+alt+backspace when done.

[Kano]

Everybody could try my hack when /etc/ati/control and/or /etc/ati/signature is removed (can be removed live after executing script with -z). This allows every hardware to run without watermark no matter if it was officially allowed/tested or not.

[dartmouth]

Ubuntu 9.10: http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21889

Fail. So, I'll try troubleshooting with ununtu 9.10 for a few days, if that doesn't work out, we'll try openSUSE. It says it's linux supported, by god, so we'll try every distro out there until someone gets this working.

I have seen a few gentoo users claiming it works in this thread, so I'll put that on the list as well. But so far, for getting this card to work with the proprietary drivers in linux-- the score is:

Failure: 6; Success: 0.

No, I don't believe this is distro-specific at all.

[mtippett]

Ubuntu 9.10: http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21889

Fail. So, I'll try troubleshooting with ununtu 9.10 for a few days, if that doesn't work out, we'll try openSUSE. It says it's linux supported, by god, so we'll try every distro out there until someone gets this working.

I have seen a few gentoo users claiming it works in this thread, so I'll put that on the list as well. But so far, for getting this card to work with the proprietary drivers in linux-- the score is:

Failure: 6; Success: 0.

No, I don't believe this is distro-specific at all.

Okay. Let's reset this.

What exactly is your problem with the hardware? Which variant of the hardware do you have - device IDs and so on are critical. In most cases it isn't a black and white "it doesn't" work.

Also have you considered compatibility with your mainboard? What chipset/mobo/etc do you have?

Let's start with the facts and go from there.

[Max Spain]

FWIW I just bought a 5770 (Sapphire Vapor-X) and it works with ATI's proprietary driver in Ubuntu 9.10. See proof here: 1 2 3 4 5
The fact that it doesn't work in other distros just blows though