How do I find the Right Ubuntu driver for 7970?

[BTCLuke]

I just put together a new rig with a pair of MSI Raedon 7970s, and I want to run the latest Ubuntu linux for them to mine with.

But everything I've seen here shows me AMD or Saphire drivers for 7970s, and I don't have a clue how to find the right ones... The MSI site doesn't have a single instance of the word "ubuntu" in it's search results!

I admit, I'm a total linux noob,  and have no idea what a sudo is... But if I could just find the right drivers and SDK to get these cards recognized in Ubuntu 12.10, I should be able to figure the rest out from some of the other directions on this forum.

Thanks in advance!
-Luke

[philips]

I just put together a new rig with a pair of MSI Raedon 7970s, and I want to run the latest Ubuntu linux for them to mine with.

But everything I've seen here shows me AMD or Saphire drivers for 7970s, and I don't have a clue how to find the right ones... The MSI site doesn't have a single instance of the word "ubuntu" in it's search results!

I admit, I'm a total linux noob,  and have no idea what a sudo is... But if I could just find the right drivers and SDK to get these cards recognized in Ubuntu 12.10, I should be able to figure the rest out from some of the other directions on this forum.

Thanks in advance!
-Luke

I use the very first driver that supported the 7970, aka 11.12 with 7970 hotfix:
amd-driver-installer-8.921-x86.x86_64.run
I also use SDK 2.7 which seemed the best.

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/hotfix/radeon_7900_series/amd-driver-installer-8.921-x86.x86_64.run
http://developer.amd.com/amd-license-agreement/?f=AMD-APP-SDK-v2.7-lnx64.tgz

[BTCLuke]

I use the very first driver that supported the 7970, aka 11.12 with 7970 hotfix:
amd-driver-installer-8.921-x86.x86_64.run
I also use SDK 2.7 which seemed the best.

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/hotfix/radeon_7900_series/amd-driver-installer-8.921-x86.x86_64.run
http://developer.amd.com/amd-license-agreement/?f=AMD-APP-SDK-v2.7-lnx64.tgz

Thanks for that.

It brings up two immediate questions though; I've just spent an hour scrolling through ckolivas' posts to try to figure them out but no luck so far...

1. Does he have the same MSI card I do?

2. He calls the driver "11.12" and then says he uses the amd-driver-installer-8.921-x86.x86_64.run "hotfix" with it. -So where is the "11.12"driver, and do I need to install that first, then the hotfix after?

Thanks again!

[BTCLuke]

Oh yeah, some other questions I can't find;

1. Should I use the crossfire cable to connect these two cards?

2. Will loading the driver & SDK once be all I need to get both cards recognized& loaded?

3. Finally, which version of cgminer is best for these cards?

Thanks again.

[BTCLuke]

I've decided to use the 11.12 driver just because the instructions would be similar to the Leonard Huang instructions found here.

However, when I get to that point, I can download the 11.12 driver, but packaging it doesn't work.

Specifically, the line that says:

Code:

sudo sh ./ati-driver-installer-11-12-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/precise

results in an immediate :

Code:

sh: 0: can't open ./ati-driver-installer-11-12-x86.x86_64.run

Again, the step before it, (wget http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ati-driver-installer-11-12-x86.x86_64.run
) worked like a charm.

What am I overlooking?

[-ck]

I use the very first driver that supported the 7970, aka 11.12 with 7970 hotfix:
amd-driver-installer-8.921-x86.x86_64.run
I also use SDK 2.7 which seemed the best.

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/hotfix/radeon_7900_series/amd-driver-installer-8.921-x86.x86_64.run
http://developer.amd.com/amd-license-agreement/?f=AMD-APP-SDK-v2.7-lnx64.tgz

Thanks for that.

It brings up two immediate questions though; I've just spent an hour scrolling through ckolivas' posts to try to figure them out but no luck so far...

1. Does he have the same MSI card I do?

2. He calls the driver "11.12" and then says he uses the amd-driver-installer-8.921-x86.x86_64.run "hotfix" with it. -So where is the "11.12"driver, and do I need to install that first, then the hotfix after?

Thanks again!

He gave you direct download links to them in his post... 

[philips]

2. He calls the driver "11.12" and then says he uses the amd-driver-installer-8.921-x86.x86_64.run "hotfix" with it. -So where is the "11.12"driver, and do I need to install that first, then the hotfix after?

Thanks again!

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Catalyst_11.12

AMD Catalyst Linux 11.12 driver

Revision Number: 11.12 (8.921)

Release Date: 12/13/11

[BTCLuke]

Thanks for you guys' help; but I'm hopping over to the Windows camp now.

I spent two days just re-installing linux 50 times after following 20 sets of instructions; but none were even CLOSE to complete.

Of course if I had the first idea of how to use linux at the terminal level I'd probably have figured it out by now.

Again, thanks for your attempts, but I know windows and more importantly, so does my motherboard and so do my 7970's!

-Luke

[philips]

So why all the hassle? Why not windows in the first place?

[BTCLuke]

So why all the hassle? Why not windows in the first place?

In my initial planning I read so much about linux mining, and about how the GUI of windows slows down the hashrates, that it scared me away from windows.

It makes sense, even to a total noob, that windows would be slower, and hence you earn fewer bitcoins... But now I know that the tradeoff is likely well worth it.

[philips]

So why all the hassle? Why not windows in the first place?

In my initial planning I read so much about linux mining, and about how the GUI of windows slows down the hashrates, that it scared me away from windows.

It makes sense, even to a total noob, that windows would be slower, and hence you earn fewer bitcoins... But now I know that the tradeoff is likely well worth it.

Meh, you'll be just fine with Windows

[SirLouen]

This driver is better than the latest? 13.1?

[philips]

I don't know how good or bad are recent drivers.
At the time I started using 7970 cards I tried all available drivers and all of them gave HW errors except this one. (http://www2.ati.com/drivers/hotfix/radeon_7900_series/amd-driver-installer-8.921-x86.x86_64.run)

After finding the best combination drivers/SDK I just left things as they were and never bothered again with updates. If ckolivas is still using that driver probably I did the right thing.
(The only thing worth updating is of course cgminer, the only gains in performance since then came from cgminer, not the drivers.)

[BTCLuke]

So are you saying that cgminer is the best software for these cards?

If so, can I use it in windows?

If so, is it hard to configure? Or do I just install the latest version and turn it on?

So far I've been using BitMinter through Java, and it's easy and clean, but I get so many stales that my actual earnings look nothing like the predicted earnings. (Less than half.)