AMD Video Acceleration

AMD/ATI Radeon GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) are the preferred high-performance graphics processors for Linux systems, as they offer extremely fast 2D/3D graphics rendering and open-source drivers. AMD's new Fusion APUs (Advanced Processing Units) are particularly advantageous for ubermix deployments in schools, as they combine the main processor and graphics processor in one low power chip, reducing power requirements and increasing battery life in low-cost netbooks, like the Hewlett-Packard dm1z and it's business/education sister, the 3115m.

While the default driver in ubermix offers excellent performance, to get the most from an ATI/AMD GPU, such as additional configuration options and to enable video acceleration (including 1080p video playback on low-power Fusion APUs), some additional drivers and software are required. Ordinarily, such configuration can be quite complicated, but with ubermix, it's been made easy. To apply these drivers and updates to ubermix, follow these steps:

1. On your ubermix system, use Firefox to download amd-vaapi.tar.gz from the ubermix files page. When Firefox asks you what to do with the file, choose "Open with Archive Manager". The file is fairly large, so it could take a little time to download on a slow link.
2. When the archive manager loads, click on the "Extract" button, then click on "Extract" again to save the file in your home folder. Close the archive manager when complete.
3. Open your home folder using the launcher (press the "Windows" of 'Home" key on your keyboard to return to the launcher), then locate and open the "amd-vaapi" folder.
4. Double-click on the "setup.sh" file, and click on the "Run in Terminal" button when prompted.

After performing the above steps, you will be led through the installation process. This process will lead you through three steps:

1. The first step installs the AMD/ATI proprietary video driver. This step is required to proceed to the immediately following (optional) steps.
2. Next, the installer will prompt you to install the Video Acceleration API (VAAPI). This will offload video processing to the GPU for most video formats, generally improving performance when playing videos and reducing processor load. This install is optional, just in case you experience problems with video playback or other issues on your system. For example, we have experienced occasional hangs when playing videos after a suspend on some devices with C-series APUs. If you experience a problem with playback, simply apply an ubermix quick recovery.
3. Finally, the installer will offer to install the Flash Video Replacer and Flashblock extensions to Firefox. Adobe Flash Player on Linux does not yet support GPU accelerated playback on AMD GPUs (be sure to let them know they need to work on this!), so Flash Video Replacer will automatically replace flash video on web sites with an accelerate-able format when possible. Flashblock further improves performance on low-power systems by enabling you to choose what flash content loads on what web sites. If you don't want either of these, simply decline the install when prompted.