Thank you very much!
Got to figure the installation successfully with your clue about do not to create deb files but to install the driver directly from the extracted folder.
I will create a guide for others and will post here.
Back to top

4.20.37 sgfxi now should support beta fglrx, first one is 13.3.

Also updates itself by checking an smxi data file to see if there is a later version of the beta driver for that month.

This should in theory work, however, do note that 13.3 does not support xorg 1.14, only 1.13.

sgfxi -B

should use it if available.

I tested the download / file name testing logic, and that all works, package downloads, extracts, and should install, but the install was not tested.

13.3 beta3 is the first officially supported beta for fglrx/sgfxi, use it, try it, note, the watermark on the screen is something you should file bug reports to amd about, not here.

I have no plans on tracking their legacy driver support because it's too hard to build that in because of the way they do the release version identification.
Back to top

Please, do not give up the legacy driver. There is many users like me that will feel it.
Back to top

amd is not using coherent version numbering and I'm not going to redo the entire guts of sgfxi just to handle that aberrant behavior, which, if their past behavior is any indication, they will a: change to something else at random, b: drop support for that legacy card in 6 months, c: never add new xorg support, or d: something else unpredictable that I cannot predict because, well, because they aren't predictable.

For example, nvidia has their new legacy branch, 304.xx, so when they release a beta 304, or a new 304, everything is set and works. Because they release their 6/7xxx driver with the version number 304, I was easily able to add support for that legacy driver in sgfxi BEFORE it was even the official legacy driver, that's because they create predictable interfaces that are pleasant to deal with.

amd on the other hand, recently released a legacy driver with the same version number as the current stable (was it 12.10? I don't remember which it was) but for the legacy driver, that is simply so absurd that I can't track it, if they ever stop their absurd version number schemes and adopt something more sensible for legacy drivers, I'll track it, but not until then.

Next time you invest in computer hardware, if you need non free driver support that lasts for many years, and if you need an advanced video card, just skip amd and go straight to nvidia, they are the only ones with a proven track record of meeting and matching challenges like new xorgs/kernels for legacy drivers for much longer than amd/ati.

Or get to like radeon driver, the free stuff is fine.

sgfxi hasn't 'dropped' support for fglrx legacy driver, it simply won't handle it until they figure out a way to deliver it that makes sense in terms of version numbering. The ball is in their court, either do as they normally do, make a wrong decision and then struggle to cram the future into that decision, or do it well, and make it easy on everyone.

Because of the year.month numbering schema, there's no way for sgfxi to know what driver is actually the new legacy driver or what is current stable, the way they handled beta stuff is bad enough as it is. the sad thing is they used to use normal version numbers, so they could have had, say, an 860.xx branch that was the legacy driver, then move the numbers on as current stable advances. Internally in the run/zip driver package in fact they still have that number, but there's no way for sgfxi to access it until it is downloaded and extracted, long after it needed that information, sadly. I could track the actual release numbers but i doubt they are any more coherent, but who knows.

I'm pleased that a recent change on their download page made at least a crude tracking of the beta driver possible automatically, but I don't expect that to last or be reliable long term, but I'll give them a chance to show they are serious about at least attempting to do things better...
Back to top

I am carrying a big regret with me when I bought a laptop with AMD/RADEON video.. for sure I'll never do this stupid thing again... :( AMD sucks..
Back to top

This is NOT a new problem in fact, the reason I held off on switching to GNU/Linux full time was exactly because of ongoing issues with ATI cards and linux. I finally solved this issue, at the end of 2005, by FIRST asking someone who was quite expert in linux video support what card to get on my new system, he suggested nvidia, and I have been a happy user of nvidia ever since in situations where I need non free video driver support.

I do however use radeon xorg free drivers as my first choice for desktops/servers where performance is not an issue because it is much easier to maintain them over time.

So it's simple, nothing has ever changed in linux desktops: for high performance non free blob support, nvidia has always consistently been superior, and has worked feverishly to maintain support for xorg versions, kernel versions, as close to real time as possible. They do this because they have good practices that make such support possible/viable. Because of this, almost all rolling release distributions can generally run current nvidia drivers with little effort, barring the occasional requirement to patch the driver to handle a kernel change.

AMD/ATI, on the other hand, has consistently made it their policy to support only a small subset of linux distributions, none of the rolling release, and has only barely supported, or not at all, new kernels/xorg versions, often you have to wait for months to get support for new kernels/xorgs.

For example, nvidia has support for xorg 1.14 now, and I believe also for their 304 and 173 series legacy drivers. These drivers also support 3.7/3.8 kernels. AMD fglrx does not have support for these in any current stable, and their beta driver only supports 1.13 xorg.

This is typical, and is by design. AMD is also doing very poorly financially, and has laid off a large number of their linux driver developers, so you can only expect this situation to get worse in the future.
Back to top

Thanks for clarifying.
For sure my next laptop will embed nvidia instead amd. Hopefully, somehow, till there we gonna have good news from amd side regarding new legacy drivers.
Appreciate your hard work and collaboration.
Back to top

Let me also encourage you to consider intel if you do not need heavy 3d graphics, they also are free xorg drivers, and tend to also work, though there have been some issues recently.

There is a laptop nvidia chip that caused problems recently, I believe nouveau could not run it, so distros could not boot with graphics, causing issues, I can't remember which chip it was, but all the standard nvidia chips/cards should work well.

Also to be fair, keep in mind, if you install a frozen pool release distribution where their kernel and fglrx / xorg packages are in synch, you can run that just fine for a long time, that's what amd tries to support, so that's really what you should run if you want to use , or are stuck using, fglrx drivers.
Back to top

Just my own opinion, if you're looking for a new laptop, check system76.com. You don't have to worry about the hardware, they did that for you. Unfortunately, the only laptop with nvidia support is their 17" monster. It'll be that way until nvidia figures out the whole optimus technology mess on linux.
Back to top