How to fix Plymouth on Ubuntu 12.10 with Ati and Nvidia proprietary drivers

I was going to do this manually, but after a bit of Googling I came across a script which does the job nicely. I downloaded it, had a look at the code, and once satisfied, ran it. I now have plymouth at boot.

The code courtesy of d0rkye and kyleabaker:

wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/121675171/fixplymouth
chmod +x fixplymouth
./fixplymouth

Original article found here:
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/10/script-to-fix-ubuntu-plymouth-for.html

Thanks webupdate, d0rkeye and kyleabaker.

Ubuntu 12.10 on AMD64 missing microcode boot error

No Plymouth and Module Load Error:

I don’t get the fancy Plymouth screen at boot, and I get this annoying message;
“failed to load file amd-ucode/microcode_amd.bin”

AMD 64bit Quadcore CPU Microcode Module:

So, first to get this error fixed, then Plymouth later. As i’m using a 64bit AMD Quadcore CPU, I guessed it was a module either failing to load or a non-existent module, and a bit of Googling proved me right.

**Note
In the comments Mathias pointed out that you can install the needed module from the Ubuntu repos, whereas below I provide a step by step manual install. To install it automatically:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install amd64-microcode

I downloaded and installed the microcode manually from AMD:

http://www.amd64.org/support/microcode.html

First download and add the AMD public key to your keyring and verify the signature:

To import the key (when downloaded from amd64.org) use
gpg –import ucode.sign.pgp.pub

To download the public key from keyserver use
gpg –keyserver keys.gnupg.net –recv-keys 9F94BC90

The key fingerprint is
0719 2E77 C9C5 79D6 D122 6AC3 6257 68B9 9F94 BC90

To verify the integrity of the GPG key fingerprint use
gpg –fingerprint ucode@amd64.org

To verify the integrity of the container file package use
gpg –verify amd-ucode-latest.tar.asc amd-ucode-latest.tar

Now let’s download this module and get it installed, locked and loaded:

1. Create a directory for the module:

sudo mkdir /lib/firmware/amd-ucode

2. Go here and accept the conditions to download the tar file: 

http://www.amd64.org/index.php?id=50&file=amd-ucode-latest.tar

3. Extract it.

cd Downloads
tar xf amd-ucode-latest.tar
cd amd-ucode-2012-09-10

4. Copy the microcode over to the firmware directory:

cp microcode_amd.bin   /lib/firmware/amd-ucode
cp microcode_amd_fam15h.bin    /lib/firmware/amd-ucode

5. Now remove any old modules, and reload your new microcode module:

sudo modprobe -r microcode

sudo modprobe microcode

That’s it, now reboot and you should be blessed with an error-free boot

Ubuntu 12.10 – Install Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS Driver

Ubuntu Nvidia borkage
I see a load of people over on the Ubuntu forums getting their daily borkage fix trying to install the “nvidia-current” driver so they can get that much desired full 3D acceleration out of their cards.

Debian and Nvidia over the years
As a Debian user who suffered for years with Nvidia, enough to change to Ati, I know all about Nvidia borkage.

Ati to Nvidia
Anyway, long story short, needed the 1Gb Ati card for my Debian media center, so ended up having to use a 256Mb Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS on the office box, which due to boredom just got Ubuntu 12.10 installed on it.

Necessities for installing anything
Couple of things here that are regulars for us Debian users, which the Ubuntu crowd rarely post about. Mesa-Utils, and (the essential) Module-Assistant, as it gets your headers, build-essential and all manner of “compile-ready” bits n bobs.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install module-assistant mesa-utils

Module Assistant
Module assistant will run off and fetch everything you need to compile and load any kernel module, from graphics card drivers to wireless firmware. This usually includes build-essential and your kernel-headers amongst other things. So just tell it to prepare your system with a simple:

sudo m-a prepare

Installing the proprietary Nvidia kernel module/driver

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current

Now just reboot and fire up glxgears (from the mesa-utils package) in the terminal and watch those pretty cogs show you how fast your 3D accelerated Nvidia card is.