Screen Flickering in Ubuntu
Screen Flickering in Ubuntu
Hey everyone, just updated the note. The main problem isn’t with the installation itself, but with the screen flickering on one of my monitors. I have three displays: two dedicated graphics (R9 280 via HDMI/DVI) and one integrated graphics (Intel HD via VGA). The DVI screen is showing issues, while the others work perfectly in Windows. I’ve been trying to set up Ubuntu on a small partition using a bootable USB drive. The process keeps failing, so I ended up creating an EFI partition for a clean install.
I’m currently running an R9 280 and see flickering only on the DVI output—not the HDMI one. I’ve been searching for dedicated AMD Radeon drivers online but haven’t been able to get past the installation steps. After rebooting with a bootable USB, I tried installing the drivers and then restarting, but got a command-line error. The system started GNOME Display Manager and applied changes, though it shut down again. Someone suggested using LightDM as a temporary fix because of a known bug.
I’m trying to figure out what’s going wrong and need guidance. I’ve had several failed attempts in the past few days, so it might just be installation quirks or something I’m missing. I’m reaching out to the Linux community for help before the upcoming updates. Thanks for your support!
Sincerely,
Zac
I'll summarize this briefly. The R9 280 is set to fall back to an outdated, unsupported Radeon driver on Ubuntu. The alternative you downloaded is an older proprietary version that isn't maintained anymore. You might need to downgrade X.org or switch to a more modern Linux distribution. The recommended fix is to enable the new AMD GPU support using the amdgpu driver, which requires adjusting kernel parameters in GRUB and updating the system. If issues persist, tweak the initramfs configuration and reboot.
I received an update and installed it on the third drive without issues. It worked perfectly with just the HDMI plugged in. When I connected DVI and the integrated GPU via VGA, all three displays appeared but the DVI screen kept flickering. In Ubuntu, turning off other displays and keeping only DVI functionalized the issue. Once I added both others back, it resolved completely. It seems the system struggles to manage multiple displays at startup, but works fine when starting with just one. This workaround is temporary—it raises concerns about a potential driver problem or another underlying issue.
I’ll attempt the suggested changes later and will share the outcomes then. To remove the existing Radeon drivers, follow the manufacturer’s guidelines for uninstalling them.
Try going back to the previous free driver, then remove it. If you used fglrx- install it again and delete that version too.
Well, to clarify once more, this morning I attempted to boot into Ubuntu and encountered: fsck exited with status code 8. Before that, I noticed an error stating "Invalid PCI ROM header signature: expecting 0xaa55, got 0xffff." This issue is documented as a known bug on sources like linuxquestions.org and freedesktop.org. The fix mentioned involves reinstalling the OS multiple times, yet the problem persists. EDIT: I wondered if Ubuntu tends to have bugs compared to other distros. Would another operating system be more reliable for beginners? Interestingly, running Ubuntu inside VMware works perfectly, but installation fails when using a physical machine. Maybe the translation layers in VMware are causing complications?
I'm continuing to work with Ubuntu right now, as you mentioned it's a more reliable distribution. I've reinstalled again and am checking if changing partitions via MiniTool Partition Wizard is causing problems. I'm trying to sort my partitions by label to avoid affecting boot sectors, but so far it hasn't helped. The issue with multiple monitors running out of RAM on the R9 280 remains, which I can handle as long as the system boots properly. Overall, everything seems to be working okay so far.