Here’s a short list of the new features concerning hybrid graphics in Ubuntu 14.04:
- External displays connected to the NVIDIA GPU can now be used through the “nvidia-settings” panel. We used to disable them but this is no longer the case (also there’s a fix pending for LP: #1296020, in case your BIOS provides a fake output)
- We have a more robust system to detect and enable hybrid graphics, thanks to the new gpu-manager (I’ll write a more technical article with all the details soon).
- We now fall back on the open Intel driver if any of the required components is missing (e.g. the kernel module was not built for the newly installed kernel, or a key package was accidentally removed).
- Installing the nvidia or the fglrx driver should allow hybrid graphics to work with no further action required. Switching from a power profile to another can be done using the relevant control panels (either AMD’s or NVIDIA’s), as usual.
- A direct benefit of using a recent kernel is that tearing on Intel/NVIDIA systems, while still an issue, should be a little reduced.
My special thanks go to Maarten Lankhorst (of Nouveau fame), who helped a lot by providing guidance, testing, and debugging X issues.
Hey, what about the new Catalyst 14.4 driver? Any plans to get it on Ubuntu 14.04?
Thanks for the efforts!
It’s great to read how simple it is. But actually its not that simple on my system. I downloaded fglrx driver and now I can’t resume from a standby. Is there a procedure I should follow to enjoy the benefits you are discussing here ? My card is (Radeoh HD 7730M), I’m using Ubuntu 14.04 of course.
That is probably a bug in the fglrx driver. Please file a bug report about it.
I’m using Ubuntu 14.04. Newbie. I’m confusing about XORG or FGLRX. You can give me advice please? (My English not good, help me plz :D)
Hi,
I have been having a serious issue with my Ubuntu 14.04 installation for the last few months. I have an AMD APU dual graphics setup with the Radeon HD 6550 and Radeon HD 6670 cards installed. Everytime I install the graphics drivers Catalyst 14.4 from the AMD website, following the instructions as given, I get a dark screen on reboot. I realise from trawling through all the forums that the gpumanager seems to be rewriting the xorg.conf file. I checked in my system, and indeed it does whenever I reboot. I was hoping that with the latest version of the ubuntu-drivers-common package, this problem will go, but it still hasn’t.
I would really appreciate it if someone could help me out. I tried sticking to Xorg, but the display is pretty bad and there is a horrible lag with the keyboard. I do hope someone could help me out with this. I am happy to provide more information if needed.
Thanks in advance.
I uploaded a fix for the ubuntu-drivers-common package in trusty-proposed, as per comment #31 of https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1310489 . That should solve your problem.
Hi Alberto. Thanks for your help and the work you are putting into this. However, I followed the instructions, updated ubuntu-drivers-common in trusty-proposed, but still no result. Its exactly the same problem as before – xorg.conf being rewritten on reboot and the system not loading and graphics. I am logging an error in the bug reporting link you provided above, along with the gpu-manager.conf file. One thing though, I am trying to install the Catalyst driver 14.6 and not the 14.4 as earlier as AMD says 14.6 is compatible with ubuntu 14.04. Don’t know if this makes any difference.
I do hope this can be sorted out soon though. Thanks again.