Remove the beta watermark

[Alberto Milone]

The driver uploaded in precise shows a rather annoying watermark which could discourage users from using the beta driver. It's already clear in both the packaging and in the UI that the driver is experimental and the initial warning should be enough vs a constant reminder of the beta status.

[Daniel Bomar (dbdaniel42)]

I agree it's pretty annoying. Anyone know a way to disable it manually?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I've opened a matching precise task. Alberto, does the raring one still need to be open?

[Adam Conrad (adconrad)]

Hello Alberto, or anyone else affected,

Accepted fglrx-installer-experimental-9 into precise-proposed. The package will build now and be available at http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer-experimental-9/2:9.010-0ubuntu0.3 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[Christopher Blay (blayde)]

I'm still seeing a watermark but it's different now. I don't remember exactly what it used to say because I've been running the driver distributed by AMD for awhile now but this new watermark just says 'Unsupported hardware'. It doesn't show up in screenshots although I'm not sure the old one ever did either. TF2 plays very well. Here is what I hope to be other relevant information:

$ dpkg -l | grep fglrx
ii fglrx-amdcccle-experimental-9 2:9.010-0ubuntu0.3 Catalyst Control Center for the AMD graphics accelerators
ii fglrx-experimental-9 2:9.010-0ubuntu0.3 Experimental AMD binary Xorg driver and kernel module
$ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Manhattan [Mobility Radeon HD 5400 Series]
$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS \n \l

$ uname -a
Linux ---- 3.2.0-36-generic #57-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jan 8 21:44:52 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
$ glxinfo | grep vendor
server glx vendor string: ATI
client glx vendor string: ATI
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Please let me know if I can try anything else or give you any other information.

[Timo Jyrinki (timo-jyrinki)]

Christopher: Unsupported Hardware is different from the watermark. It means that either on purpose or accidentally AMD has marked your card as being unsupported by the driver. AMD recently dropped official support for all HD 2000 - HD 4000 series cards. Some HD 5000 Mobility cards are actually (technically) HD 4000 series, even though the 5400 series should be (technically) the same platform as the desktop 5000 series graphics.

That said, I can verify that the watermark is not there, using Radeon HD 6670 + 2:9.010-0ubuntu0.3 from precise-proposed.

[Christopher Blay (blayde)]

Dang does this mean there's no supported proprietary driver for the HD 5400 anymore? I'm not sure how Ubuntu handles these edge-cases:

 * Should this driver not show up in Jockey for HD 5400 anymore?
 * Should the description say something about HD 5400 not being supported?
 * Should this driver not activate for the HD 5400?
-or-
 * Since it's still working perfectly is it worth the effort of hiding the 'unsupported' watermark for now?

I'll be unsubscribing from this bug and going back to the driver distributed by AMD but there will be plenty of others with this ~2 year old card that will expect it to be supported by this driver and will complain about the watermark.

And for those of us out there with the HD 5400: The driver at http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx works on all HD 5xxx cards just fine with no watermark.

[Timo Jyrinki (timo-jyrinki)]

It's still listed even in the beta driver's "supported" section, so it should be supported. It might be simply a bug on AMD side in the newest beta.

And yes, Jockey should not list newer drivers for cards that are no longer supported, like the HD 2000 - HD 4000 series. This is however harder if the driver claims to support a card (and actually supports ie. it works) but still says it'd be somehow unsupported.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

The verification of this Stable Release Update has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regresssions.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package fglrx-installer-experimental-9 - 2:9.010-0ubuntu0.3

---------------
fglrx-installer-experimental-9 (2:9.010-0ubuntu0.3) precise-proposed; urgency=low

  * debian/control{.in}:
    - Drop all the dependencies on the linux-headers (LP: #1080588).
  * debian/rules:
    - Remove the watermark from the driver (LP: #1083544).
  * debian/substvars:
    - Remove versioned dependency on the xserver (LP: #1080588).

fglrx-installer-experimental-9 (2:9.010-0ubuntu0.2) precise-proposed; urgency=low

  * debian/substvars:
    - Add alternative dependency on xserver-xorg-core-lts-quantal (LP: #1080588).
 -- Alberto Milone <email address hidden> Fri, 25 Jan 2013 12:50:52 +0100