Ubuntu 10.10 and ATI Radeon HD 6870

So, quite some time ago I made the mistake of buying the ATI Radeon HD 6870 without first checking if it would play nice with my Ubuntu 10.10 desktop.
Turned out it didn’t 🙁

But now, there are proprietary Linux drivers released by ATI/AMD

  1. First, you should update your system (just to be sure).

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get upgrade

  2. If you’ve been using older drivers, remove them.

    sudo apt-get remove –purge xserver-xorg-video-radeon

  3. Download the install package from the AMD suppot pages and make it executable

    chmod +x ati-driver-installer*.run

  4. Run the installer as sudo-user

    sudo ./ati-driver-installer*.run

  5. Reboot

Enjoy!

The Linux 2.6.38 kernel carries the ATI Radeon HD 6000 open source support. (just fyi!)
If you encounter problems or found this post helpful, it would be nice to leave a comment below.
This way, I can adjust it to the needs of my readers.

20 thoughts on “Ubuntu 10.10 and ATI Radeon HD 6870”

  1. Are there any problems with compiz?
    I experienced some problems with my old amd 3650 when compiz was enabled. Minimized windows would open with some short delay of 1 second

  2. Hmm, this works perfectly, but my theme is all weird now.. It’s like basic theme on Windows..

    1. Its pity, that user as me, have to wait for that new kernel, as you wrote, to try distributions like OpenSuse, or Fedora (Both launching only in text mode, even in safe mode). I mean, im pretty sure, that someone smarter then me can install that drivers in text mode. But many users can not. And second thing, is that im just finishing my IT Pro school, and there is not a single word about Linux. The only thing I learn about it is how to use putty to connect via ssh to work on distance. Anyway, god bless people like you, who easly, translating how-to, step-by-step, keep up the good work…

      PS. By the IT school i mean after high-school IT Technician. I know that on university i would learn that, but I had no other choice (that, or nothing). Pls, dont thing i complaing about universitis, i know that those people, are a lot smarter then me…

      1. Drivers can be a pain from time to time.
        The best thing you can do is check compat. before you buy something… (which I didn’t when I bought this card) :s

        There’s still a lot of polishing to be done, I agree… But if you check where we’re coming from, it’s evolving very fast.
        The good part is that you learn some linux by solving these problems.
        Tip: don’t just copy-paste commands… do some research, check what each thing does and why you have to do it or how to extend the use of some tools.

  3. Still the same problem – black screen and comp frozen just before logon to ubuntu.
    Need to restart in recovery mode and rollback.

  4. Hi all, I have installed with success the ati drivers (nice view and video accel.), I was wondering if anyone was also able to set up the “Dual-Head” configuration.
    In my computer, the secondary socket, it looks like shuted down

  5. Thanks for these detailed instructions!!  My picture was fine but no audio from HDMI (Ubuntu 11.04).  This solved the problem.  Thanks again!

  6. Thank you very much.

    At Start my Card didn’t even boot to safemode! So I entered GRUB via holding shift during boot. Then I changed the commandline that says sth. bout grafix = nomodeset and followed your tutorial. No it works!

  7. hello
    what can i do to solve the problem if I want to install ubuntu on a brand new pc without any system on it??
    Regards
    Ale

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