Linux, Lenovo, AMD Radeon

[Petter Adsen]

On Sat, 27 Feb 2016 18:31:51 +1100
Karl Auer <kauer at biplane.com.au> wrote:

> Sad face :-(
> 
> My new Lenovo E560, with AMD Radeon R7 M360 arrived yesterday. Today I
> went to install Ubuntu 14.04-02 on it, only to fall at the first
> hurdle.
...
> I'm downloading 15.10 now, just in case that makes a difference, but
> otherwise I can see no remedy but to return the unit - if they'll take
> it back.
> 
> Unless someone out there has a magic incantation?

If you can't get 14.04.4 or 15.10 to boot, have you tried to pass
'nomodeset' to the kernel?

From the little searching I did just now, it seems you need the
proprietary driver (fglrx, Catalyst, Crimson or whatever it is called
today) from AMD for this chipset, I can't find any indication that it
works with the radeon driver. One option if nomodeset doesn't help
would be to install from the Server image in text mode, and then
install X and the proprietary driver from the CLI.

Take this with a grain of salt, I haven't looked really hard.

> I'm starting to think I should have listened to Gene Heskett about
> AMD...

I've always liked AMD, but Intel stuff tends to Just Work with Linux.
Both AMD and Nvidia can cause headaches if you need to use the
proprietary drivers. If you have the option of returning the machine
for one with an integrated Intel GPU I would seriously consider it.

Petter

-- 
"I'm ionized"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive."