Mint 6 -ATI 3870 drivers?

I'm still sticking my toes in freeware waters. I enjoyed Ubuntu and decided to dual boot my XP rig with Mint 6 64bit. I am still a linux noob, but studying.

Mint installed beautifully, and I like the polished appearance. Updated it without a hitch.

I used the Synaptic Package Manager to download the ATI Radeon drivers, with no effect. I cannot enable any of the desktop effects.

So I used the Software Manager (I think) which detected my ati card and offered to download the necessary drivers.

After they installed, the screen went black. The monitor indicated it was "out of range" It would not display even in recovery mode, so I uninstalled and started over.

What would be the correct procedure to install video drivers for a Sapphire 3870? Was my mistake choosing the 64 bit version of Mint 6?

The specs are the second rig in my signature.

Thanks!

The only real "mistake" is using ATI. They have been really poor supporting their drivers. In fact, the newest version of Xorg broke what little previous support that ATI had.

On a side note you can try using Evny-ng to install ATI drivers. It supports both ATI and NVIDIA. Though I have only ever used Nvidia/Intel graphics with linux. My last ATI card was a 9800 pro

Yargh. That's not what I wanted to hear! Well, at least it wasn't me. I found the CLI commands to update the drivers and they didn't work any better than the GUI.

Stratus_ss, if you were to buy a video card specifically for Mint, with the most comprehensive driver-set with 3d support, what would you choose?

Found this discussion: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=837790

It doesn't look like people are too keen on using envy with ATI products, but I'll try it out.

Thanks!

oakstave said:

Yargh. That's not what I wanted to hear! Well, at least it wasn't me. I found the CLI commands to update the drivers and they didn't work any better than the GUI.

Stratus_ss, if you were to buy a video card specifically for Mint, with the most comprehensive driver-set with 3d support, what would you choose?

Found this discussion: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=837790

It doesn't look like people are too keen on using envy with ATI products, but I'll try it out.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Well how high powered do you want? So far I personally have experience with everything from the FX series all the way to the 8800gtx. I don't have a series 9xxx card but I would assume their support would be good to.

I currently have the following cards:
7900gs
8800gtx
8200gs (x2)
8400gs
6600gts
fx5500
intel 4500HD
all running perfectly well under linux (various distros)
The Intel card is the weakest of the bunch but it was only to decode videos and basic 3d support

^ Thanks for the thorough reply. I was wondering about the 8800 series.

I'm committed to dual booting or running linux only on all my rigs eventually, and I buy a new video card at least annually.

Well it didnt' solve my problem, but I learned something.