How to know if my Kubuntu 1404 is using the Radeon HD 8530M

[Kubuntu1404_Singapore]

Got a new samsung ativ i5 w/ hybrid graphics (Intel 4000 + Radeon HD 8530) the other day. Tried several flavours of Debian and killed them all due to overzealously following [outdated?] forum instructions from around the world on how to get ATI/AMD free or non-free drivers to work with this hardware. I could not get Debian to actually see the card.

I switched to Kubuntu 14.04 and am happy with this set up overall. I am nearly certain it sees and uses the ATI card but want to know precisely how to confirm. I am worried the system in reality uses the on board intel graphics controller instead. The Radeon DOES show up now under driver manager, which at first it didn't and I never found it in Debian at all. I get 4309.967 FPS using vblankmode=0 glxgears.
Advice on whether this is fully recognised and working under Kubuntu14.04 would be appreciated. I am running the xorg free ati driver under Driver Manager in the default Kubuntu / KDE GUI set up.

Other relevant information below.

--
lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)

lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev c4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM76 Express Chipset LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Mars [Radeon HD 8730M]
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (rev 24)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)

lspci -v [excerpted]
01:00.0 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Mars [Radeon HD 8730M]
Subsystem: Samsung Electronics Co Ltd Device c0e8
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 47
Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Memory at f7e00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
I/O ports at e000 [size=256]
Expansion ROM at f7e40000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: radeon

sudo dmesg | grep drm [excerpted]
[ 1.576402] [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
[ 1.620607] [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled.
[ 1.623358] [drm] Memory usable by graphics device = 2048M
[ 1.623368] fb: conflicting fb hw usage inteldrmfb vs EFI VGA - removing generic driver

[HalationEffect]

Check the output of:

glxinfo | grep OpenGL

On my system (using Intel HD with no other graphics adapter in my computer) I get the output below; I think you should get something different if your system is properly using the Radeon.

~$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Desktop 
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 9.0
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30

(Edit) BTW, from what I've read, you'll need to use the non-free driver (AMD Catalyst a.k.a. fglrx) for proper support of hybrid graphics systems.

[Kubuntu1404_Singapore]

Many thanks!
I think the result proves that its not using the Radeon. I am afraid of apt-get install fglrx as going down that path killed 3 Debian installs before I switched to Kubuntu..
See the results here:

kubuntu:~$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ivybridge Mobile
OpenGL core profile version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 10.1.0
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 3.30
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.0
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL extensions:

[Kubuntu1404_Singapore]

Check the output of:

glxinfo | grep OpenGL

On my system (using Intel HD with no other graphics adapter in my computer) I get the output below; I think you should get something different if your system is properly using the Radeon.

~$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Desktop 
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 9.0
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30

(Edit) BTW, from what I've read, you'll need to use the non-free driver (AMD Catalyst a.k.a. fglrx) for proper support of hybrid graphics systems.

Sorry for one more query. Reading around Ubuntu forums it seems that support for the Radeons via the open source driver packages usually comes with a bit of time. Presuming I don't mind waiting, is it a good assumption that one day with an apt-get update / upgrade the Radeon will start being used? Or, I must take pro-active steps to resolve this somehow? Thanks in advance.

[HalationEffect]

It's possible that some day in the future the free radeon driver might support switchable hybrid graphics, but you might be waiting months or possibly even years before it happens.

Until then, it looks like the only way to switch on and use your radeon adapter in Linux is with the Catalyst Control Centre for the proprietary driver.

[Kubuntu1404_Singapore]

It's possible that some day in the future the free radeon driver might support switchable hybrid graphics, but you might be waiting months or possibly even years before it happens.

Until then, it looks like the only way to switch on and use your radeon adapter in Linux is with the Catalyst Control Centre for the proprietary driver.

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I have to admit to being too scared to kill this system now that its working so well... If I take the risk, I'll post back the results for others to learn from....

[mr_raider]

Use the restricted driver manager to install the fglrx driver. The version supplied may or may not support the 8000 mobility series. If that doesn't work you may try the manual install of 14.4

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-arti...ta-driver.aspx

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubu...allation_Guide

[Kubuntu1404_Singapore]

Use the restricted driver manager to install the fglrx driver. The version supplied may or may not support the 8000 mobility series. If that doesn't work you may try the manual install of 14.4

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-arti...ta-driver.aspx

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubu...allation_Guide

Thank you!

This AMD site led to a very useful revelation as they indicated there were problems with the 8--- series in Linux that they are addressing with 14.4 for Catalyst and the manual install approach. That got me thinking about fglrx-driver.

Then, I reviewed the notes on the fglrx_driver to see if it already includes these updates from AMD and it seems clear that is does NOT include the 14.4 support mentioned as of yet (https://packages.debian.org/sid/fglrx-driver) because 8--- series are not mentioned whereas the other series are.

In retrospect this is probably why the prior instances of trying the fglrx-driver resulted in GUI's being destroyed (I attempted Debian 7.5 Wheezy twice and Jessie once). I probably could have done apt-get -purge fglrx-driver from the recovery prompt and perhaps rescued my installs. For others who had the same problem of the GUI crashing after troubleshooting via installation of non-free drivers - and I know I'm not alone - try this suggestion before giving up on your installation.

Because I had clicked a bunch of non-free stuff related to ATI in synaptic I wasn't focused enough in identifying the problem. At the time I also hadn't identified the existence of 14.4 Catalyst or read the package details on fglrx-driver. Lesson learned. Conclusion for any other n00bs using Linux with Radeon 8--- is: fglrx-driver as currently packaged is incompatible with 8--- series and should not be installed as @May 19 2014.

Having read the manual release instructions I still wish to avoid installing any misc. binaries that aren't supported by the repository in sources.list. I think I'll wait until the fglrx-driver (non-free) package includes 14.4 / 8--- series support, that way it will be supported by the repository. If it doesn't happen in the next months I'll try the manual route as its not sensible to *never* turn on my AMD GPU. I paid for it after all!

Having migrated over time from Windows -> Mac -> Ubuntu 12.04 -> Kubuntu 14.04 now, I am glad I ended up here. I like the KDE desktop a ton (everyone, try Activities!). I hope this community stays active and big enough to support a healthy Kubuntu distro.

If any of my logic above is wrong, as I'm a relative newbie here I'd appreciate any remarks you have.

[Snowhog]

I hope this community stays active and big enough to support a healthy Kubuntu distro.

If you are referring to this forum, we've been here since July 17, 2005. If you haven't read our introduction, it's on the Front Page > Articles titled "What is Kubuntu Forums?"