BIG, BIG trouble after swapping grapics card

[Gonzo]

I installed Zorin OS on a discarded 10 year old Dell i7-4770. I borrowed a graphics card (Asus Nvidia) from another computer. I installed the NVIDIA driver metapackage (nvidia-driver-535). This driver gave the smoothest, best picture quality. Everything worked suprisingly well. After upgrading to 16 gb of ram this computer became almost as fast as my new (daily driver) computer.
I needed the Asus card back in the original computer so I decided to install a 10 year old Sapphire (Amd) 7 265 2gb dual-x graphics card I got a hold of. The picture quality wasn’t as smooth as before with the open source graphics driver Zorin provided, so I went to the Amd driver website and downloaded what I though was the correct driver (but what do I really know). I tried to install “fglrx_15.302-0ubuntu1_amd64_ub_12.04.4.deb”, but the installation failed: “Unable to install fglrx: The following packages have unmet dependencies”. Now trouble and misery commenced. I rebooted my computer and opened “Software and updates - Additional drivers” to see if Zorin had found a better driver. Sure enough there was an Amd driver there. I tried to install it and got this juicy error message: “Pk-client-error-quark: Error while installing package: installed fglrx-core package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 10 (313)“. I did a system update and rebooted again and now the picture was squashed and had a very low resolution. I rebooted again. This time the resolution was normal, but everything was very sluggish. I updated the system again and this time the NVIDIA driver I used before was on the list of things to remove. I clicked ok and I got the same pk-client-error-quark message. Now I was getting desperate and started to feel sorry for myself. I shut off the computer and removed the Sapphire card and installed the Asus card again. Booted up, opened “Software and Updates - Additional drivers” and chose the Nvidia driver I’ve used before. And sure enough:
“Error while applying changes, Pk-client-error-quark: Error while installing package: installed nvidia-dkms-535 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 10 (313)”. And this is where I am now. I understand something is broken, but I’m not knowledgeable enough to fix it. Can someone please advice how to untangle this mess I’ve created?

Here's the dkms make.log file, if it helps

DKMS make.log for nvidia-535.183.01 for kernel 5.15.0-117-generic (x86_64)
Sun 04 Aug 2024 19:16:16 IDT
make[1]: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-5.15.0-117-generic'
test -e include/generated/autoconf.h -a -e include/config/auto.conf || (
echo >&2;
echo >&2 " ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid.";
echo >&2 " include/generated/autoconf.h or include/config/auto.conf are missing.";
echo >&2 " Run 'make oldconfig && make prepare' on kernel src to fix it.";
echo >&2 ;
/bin/false)

ERROR: Kernel configuration is invalid.
include/generated/autoconf.h or include/config/auto.conf are missing.
Run 'make oldconfig && make prepare' on kernel src to fix it.

make[1]: *** [Makefile:758: include/config/auto.conf] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-5.15.0-117-generic'
make: *** [Makefile:82: modules] Error 2

[swarfendor437]

Hi, usually amd drivers are dealt with the kernel, not fglrx. When you instalked the nvidia card it will have pulled all necessary dependencies, including any packages needed via dkms, (Dynamic Kernel Management Support). It might be that you need to run an older kernel that your amd can use. Having looked at AMD website (https://www.amd.com/en/support/download/linux-drivers.html) I am not sure if it will run. Before you go any further, boot off your install media and select 'Try Zorin' to see if the AMD card works in live mode.

[Gonzo]

Hi, thanks for your response. I found the solution while browsing another forum where somebody had an issue with their Nvidia graphics card. I removed the Asus card and put back the Amd card. And for reasons that are beyond me, this time the card worked without any issues.

I run: sudo apt-get remove *nvidia*
and: sudo dpkg --configure -a

After this there are no error messages and no trace of the stupid, proprietary AMD driver that failed. I wasn't sure which driver the AMD card was using so I googled how to get graphics card driver info.

I run: glxinfo | grep -i vendor

server glx vendor string: SGI
client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI
Vendor: AMD (0x1002)
OpenGL vendor string: AMD

I also run: lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|3D|Display'

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Pitcairn PRO [Radeon HD 7850 / R7 265 / R9 270 1024SP]
Subsystem: PC Partner Limited / Sapphire Technology Pitcairn PRO [Radeon HD 7850 / R7 265 / R9 270 1024SP]
Kernel driver in use: radeon
Kernel modules: radeon, amdgpu

I'm NO expert, but as far as I understand, the driver and the modules being used are open source provided by the operating system. So, to conclude, the graphics card is correctly identified and it looks like it doesn't need a proprietary driver to work well. That's of course the best solution. Well, at least I learned something new about the glorious world of Linux.

[zabadabadoo]

I marked your last post as "Solution".