ATI Radeon HD 6600M Graphics card on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS [Solved]

I had a very bad time with my Dell Vostro laptop with ATI Radeon HD 6600M Graphics card on Fedora 16 - couldn’t install graphics card driver at all. I tried installing both kmod and akmod drivers on my machine and both didn’t work. Even thought of changing my Graphics card because of this. But continued with the same as I had several projects running and din’t wanted to waste time configuring Graphics card.

I just formatted the whole Fedora and installed Ubuntu. After several failed attempts, I have installed FGLRX drivers with help from Terry at http://linuxclicks.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/dual-monitor-display-with-ubuntuxubuntu.html
I had installed the drivers suggested by jockey-gtk so I had to uninstall them first using jockey-gtk. And restart the machine.

These are the step by step procedures

1. Uninstall any graphics drivers already installed and reboot the machine.

sudo jokey-gtk

2. Now install the drivers using this command

   sudo apt-get install fglrx-updates fglrx-amdcccle-updates

3. Initialise aticonfiguration

   sudo aticonfig --initial --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf

4. Restart the system

Verify installation by using fgl_glxgears or fglrxinfo

$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon 6600M and 6700M Series
OpenGL version string: 4.2.11627 Compatibility Profile Context
$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0116] (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Whistler [AMD Radeon HD 6600M Series] [1002:6741]
$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.04 LTS"
$ gt;echo $DESKTOP_SESSION
ubuntu
$ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p
OpenGL vendor string:   ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon 6600M and 6700M Series
OpenGL version string:  4.2.11627 Compatibility Profile Context
Not software rendered:    yes
Not blacklisted:          yes
GLX fbconfig:             yes
GLX texture from pixmap:  yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes
GL vertex program:        yes
GL fragment program:      yes
GL vertex buffer object:  yes
GL framebuffer object:    yes
GL version is 1.4+:       yes
Unity 3D supported:       yes

Additionally I installed Compiz and enabled cube and wobbly windows!! I’m loving it! If you need to install Compiz, here is the Stackoverflow question that I followed: http://askubuntu.com/questions/86977/how-to-correctly-enable-desktop-cube-in-unity-3d

I have decided to stick to Ubuntu although I have been using Fedora for a long long time. But Fedora had its vices like the infamous SELINUX, which always caused troubles. I am loving the Ubuntu Software Centre and Ubuntu One storage too :).

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