Which Distro works best with Radeon HD 4500

[immortalreiku]

So Ive been testing with different distros on my comp and cant seem to get my video drivers installed correctly or it just wont work. Ive tried ubuntu and kubuntu so far and Im really wanting to switch to linux permanently but this presents a challenge. Yes there are tons of google links and Ive spent much time walking through them only to fail. So if you have this same video card what distro do you use or if you know someone who does. Im looking for the easiest installation possible. Thanks in advance you guys

[elija]

A quick question. How are you installing the drivers?

[immortalreiku]

Well I have tried multiple ways. First off I tried frglx i believe it is through synaptics. and anything ati related. Ive downloaded three different ati proprietary drivers and attempted to install them though terminal cd-ing to the folder and running it as a program and nothin. It would say for the info command that the computer was running under my video card but i dont think opengl was working at all. Im downloading linux mint 14 cinnamon now to try next. hope this helps

[elija]

In Ubuntu, there used to be a Hardware Drivers installer under the System administration menu. That would be the preferred way to install proprietary drivers

[immortalreiku]

Any time i would open that there would not be anything listed. Does it automatically need to list it or is there something i need to do to get it listed. I.e. download the driver then run a command

[elija]

It's been a while since I ran Ubuntu but I think it appeared in there automatically.

[immortalreiku]

K imma install ubuntu again and go from there ill keep mint on the back burner for a moment since its the one im most familiar with

[kasu]

This might be helpful for you (I had to break up the URL since I'm a new member):
htt p:/ /h-node.o rg/videocards/catalogue/en
You can check on that website how well your video card works with free software. I have an HD 4850, and in order to get some functionality out of my video card (like 3D acceleration), I had to install non-free software. I still feel like it's not working quite right, so I don't know what to think about it. But GNOME 3 runs normally.

In a terminal, I also ran this command:

dmesg | grep drm

If you notice, the second line of output tells me that I need to install the firmware-linux-nonfree package:

[    4.572087] [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
[    4.646303] [drm] radeon kernel modesetting disabled; it requires firmware-linux-nonfree.
[    4.647032] [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 1 (10.10.2010).
[    4.647033] [drm] No driver support for vblank timestamp query.
[    4.647036] [drm] Initialized radeon 1.33.0 20080528 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0
[   13.515413] [drm] Setting GART location based on new memory map
[   13.515646] [drm] Loading RV770 CP Microcode
[   13.543038] [drm:r600_do_init_cp] *ERROR* Failed to load firmware!

The distro I'm using is Debian wheezy.