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How do I install the fglrx driver on Debian stretch? The package tracker states that there is no package available right now, so I added Sid, pinned on 100. When I try to install fglrx-driver now, aptitude returns something about xorg-video-abi-18, a package which should be provided by the X server itself as stated here.

How is it even possible to not have something as important as a driver in the repository of one of the biggest distros for almost an entire month now?

GAD3R
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Martin
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3 Answers3

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The current X.Org server provides xorg-video-abi-19, which fglrx doesn't support; the ABIs aren't forwards compatible, which is why you can't install the driver from the repositories.

With Debian 9 and onwards, the only way to use AMD GPUs is with the free radeon driver (with its companion non-free firmware in firmware-linux-nonfree), or for newer GPUs, its successor, amdgpu (and on these, you could if necessary use the proprietary AMDGPU Pro driver).

Note that fglrx isn't actually part of Debian, it's part of the non-free repository which is hosted on Debian's infrastructure but doesn't receive the same amount of care and support. As far as Debian is concerned, fglrx isn't missing from its distribution because it's never been a part of it.

Stephen Kitt
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  • The drivers direct from AMD do not seem to support the xserver version: "error: Detected X Server version 'XServer 1.19.2_64a' is not supported. Supported versions are X.Org 6.9 or later, up to XServer 1.10 (default:v2:x86_64:lib:XServer 1.19.2_64a:none:4.9.0-3-amd64:) Installation will not proceed." – user2800708 Aug 24 '17 at 15:18
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I had the same problem and installing open source driver solved my issue (make sure to have contrib and non-free in your source.lst) :

apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-video-ati

(the command is coming from the following wiki page : https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo)

Jérôme B
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I fixed the issue by downgrading the x-server to the one provided in jessie. The following script should do the trick:

#!/bin/bash
printf "deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free\ndeb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ stable main contrib non-free\n" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/stable.list
printf "Package: xserver-*\nPin: release a=stable\nPin-Priority:1001\n" > /etc/apt/preferences.d/xserver.pref
apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade
exit 0

To reverse your changes delete the files created in this process.

Please note that I can not guarantee that this will work. You should only do this if you understand what this script will do.

Martin
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  • I would recommend downloading a newer version of fglrx from AMD (as Stephen Kitt suggested) instead of downgrading the x-server. Downgrading x seems more likely to cause other elements of the system to break, especially seeing as stretch has been actually diverging from jessie for over a year since this answer was posted. – sig_seg_v Oct 27 '16 at 17:22