Unable to Install AMD ATI Proprietary fglrx Driver on Kali Linux Rolling 2016.1

[Mr_Kci]

Hi Kali 2016.1 / Linux Gurus

Yes this is a reoccurring thread, I’ve having problems installing ATI drivers / Catalyst on Kali. I’ve found all previous solutions and guides no longer work, only one guide I’ve found covers Kali 2.0 Sana and almost all of the advised packages no longer exist/not available. So apologies for raising this topic from the dead on this new version on Kali.

My Goal : Getting oclhashcat to work with my 2x Radeon R9 295 X2 - PCI-E Graphics cards. In Kali 1.09, I could crack about 500,000 WPA passwords p/s, a dream compared to the 2000 p/s from my i7 CPU.

Fresh install of the latest version (to date) of Kali Rolling – goes smoothly, no errors what so ever on my Asus Sabertooth X58.

Both monitors work off each graphics card fine, right out of the box, infact, better than Kali 1.09 as I didn’t crack having dual displays…but now I have dual screens….so I suspect there are some kind of drivers already installed with Kali 2016.1.

I confirmed Kali can see the graphics cards this with :

pyrit list_cores

Pyrit 0.4.0 (C) 2008-2011 Lukas Lueg http://pyrit.googlecode.com
This code is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3+

The following cores seem available...
#1: 'CPU-Core (SSE2)'
#2: 'CPU-Core (SSE2)'
#3: 'CPU-Core (SSE2)'
#4: 'CPU-Core (SSE2)'
#5: 'CPU-Core (SSE2)'
#6: 'CPU-Core (SSE2)'
#7: 'CPU-Core (SSE2)'
#8: 'CPU-Core (SSE2)'

I can install the latest version of oclhashcat 2.01 fine via

apt-get install oclhashcat

Trying oclhashcat cracking from the start results in a Segmentation fault :

oclHashcat -m 2500 CapFile.hccap rockyou.txt --force --gpu-temp-retain=55 --gpu-temp-abort=79

Segmentation fault

After my previous installs and a bit of googling, the problem points to the obvious – lack of the AMD/ATI Catalyst Graphics card driver install.

I’ve followed these various guides – all which fail in Kali 2016.1:

For Kali 1.0.6 : http://www.blackmoreops.com/2014/03/...linux-1-0-6/2/

For Kail 2.0 (Sana) : http://unix.stackexchange.com/questi...-kali-2-0-sana

For Kali 1.x : http://www.blackmoreops.com/2013/10/...ali-linux-1-x/

Kali Linux 2.0 : https://forums.hak5.org/index.php?/t...driver-install

I get stuck at the very first stages of all these guides (and others not listed), seems obvious seeing at they are all based on old versions. I either head issues or non-existent fglrx packages, missing version.h files, ATI install not finding the correct headers in the first place etc.

So where I’ve got to :

Fresh install (6-7th time)
Note : current headers

linux-headers-$(uname -r) = 4.3.0-kali1-amd64

Located : /lib/modules/4.3.0-kali1-amd64

Attempting to install Catalyst_15.7.tar.gz (sh ati-installer.sh 15.20 --install) results in lots of files not found in the error log, such as :

Located : /lib/modules/4.3.0-kali1-amd64/build/include/linux/version.h

To accompany this lovely error :

Please Install the required pre-requisites before proceeding with AMD Proprietary Driver Installation.
Install the required pre-requisites before installing the fglrx driver. Optionally, run the installer with the –force option to install without the tools
Forcing the install will disable AMD hardware acceleration and may make your system unstable. Not recommended.

And its right, trying to –force delivers a blank screen on reboot….yay…another layer of issues to resolve to get back to the original issue…yay….I rebuilt the machine instead

Trying to install the fglrx pre-requisites prior to the install results in lots off unfound packages

apt-get install fglrx-atieventsd fglrx-driver fglrx-control fglrx-modules-dkms –y

Attempting to resolve this by installing the headers :

apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) = no such packages
apt-get install linux-headers-4.3.0-kali1-amd64 = no such packages
apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade –y = great

now I have :
/lib/modules/4.3.0-kali1-amd64
/lib/modules/4.4.0-kali1-amd64

Rerunning the ATI install again, and it appeared to only ever find the 4.3 folder first and complains of missing files and folders again, completely ignoring them in the 4.4 folder.

Creating a symbolic link from 4.3 to 4.4 to trick the install into being redirected to the correct folder didn’t seem to help (this resulted in a bad install and thus a rebuild). But I overcame this issue in the end by doing clean-up the old headers and rebooting it so it doesn’t fail/look in the wrong folder:

apt-get remove 4.3.0-kali1-amd64
apt-get purge 4.3.0-kali1-amd64
apt-get autoremove
apt-get autoclean
shutdown -r now

Probably OTT, but once back up, only this path exists :

/lib/modules/4.4.0-kali1-amd64

The ATI install starts nicely now without the pre-req error or moaning at me about the lack of fglrx, but it introduces me to a brand new brick wall to hit in the error log :

Check if system has the tools required for installation.
fglrx installation requires that the system have kernel headers. /lib/modules/4.4.0-kali1-amd64/build/include/linux/version.h cannot be found on this system.
One or more tools required for installation cannot be found on the system. Install the required tools before installing the fglrx driver

And its true, /linux/version.h in that path does not exist in the 4.4 headers…rebooting leads to a bank screen which leads to a rebuild.

So I guess my first hurdle is to get the correct version.h installed prior to the ATI install WITHOUT copying it from /usr/include/linux/version.h (that ended badly for me also…rebuild :-s)

Any help or guidance for a complete Linux novice would be greatly appreciated in getting ATI drivers to install so I can move to the next step toward oclhashcat’ing  - Based on all the guides out there, next steps are SDK install, Pyrit install (even though its already there and works), Cal++ install etc

Once I’ve nailed it in a step by step process, I’ll post my own guide.

Many Thanks in advance for any help and happy to share any screenshots requested.

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[Update : 03/04/16] - a few more hours of googleing and research against "ATI Drivers for Kernel 4.4" and digging into the latest supported kernels from ATI.com, I seem to find that the highest supported Linux Kernel is 3.19 (rubbish!)

I did find this page which claimed that a script made the drivers compatible with kernel 4.5...but my high hopes were crushed when the script failed.

https://lizards.opensuse.org/tag/fglrx/

Next attack : I found an old copy of Kali 2.0 with kernel 4.0, I'll see if I can get that working with oclhashcat and then do an upgrade....

[kirini]

I hope you find ansver, I have same problem. Fresh install of kali linux(could not find older version) and AMD radeon 6850 HD
I let you know If I get it work.

[wojtas]

New to this forum, so first of all I say Hello.
I was struggling with just the same thing, hope you solve this, as I'm not that good to have success just yet... for time being I just installed Kali Sana - it seems still available with a "back entrance" - copy link from download page to address bar and delete file name. Then http://unix.stackexchange.com/questi...-kali-2-0-sana worked fine.

[Starcruiser322]

I'm in much the same boat. I've found that the 15.12 driver (newer) automatically compiles the driver from scripts. The furthest I got before an error was 93% (dkms compile). I grabbed all the prerequisite packages described from the update notes and i always have the development headers for my kernel so I didn't get any dependency errors, maybe that will help you.

EDIT: I've done some more research, and it seems that you're right about the AMD drivers only supporting up to kernel 3.19, as well as xorg/xserver up to 1.17. It even says that on the release notes page. I'm going to try downgrading X and building a custom kernel 4.4 with some patches. Wish me luck, I've never done a kernel mod this intensive before. If it works I'll post the steps.

[grok]

[2016-02-03] fglrx-driver 1:15.12-2 removed from kali-rolling (Kali Repository)
[2016-02-03] fglrx-driver 1:15.12-2 removed from kali-dev (Kali Repository)

I'm not sure why it was removed. It's very much missed. Has anyone found a work-around? I'm playing with a few things, but I find my options are limited. I'd love to know why they removed it. Probably for stability reasons.

[Pietje]

I have a laptop with NIVIDA GTX 970 and a little desktop with AMD 7850 both not working with kali 2 rolling....someone has a solution?

[TaiTair]

Same problem here, Kali Rolling 2016.2.

Did some research and tried installing AMD's latest linux driver for my graphics card: Radeon HD 6620G.

It tried to compile from script and totally failed. It corrupted my installation which is pretty dear to me. So I spent the entire rest of the day fixing it.

Apparently the installation looks for libs in the wrong place and still tries to run. When it can't even compile the kernel module it still tries to install "basic functionality". Ironically - the basic functionality is what stopped my computer from booting. I can't get the installation log back because I had to uninstall fglrx completely with --force parameters running the script in /usr/share/ati/.

Even after uninstalling fglrx my computer would still not boot - gdm had gotten corrupted and so did glibgl1. Had to reinstall both: sudo apt-get install --reinstall gdm glibgl1. Used dpkg --get-selections | grep glibgl1 to find exactly which packages to reinstall. I also reinstalled kali-desktop-gnome at some point but i am not sure that had anything to do with my solution.

Anyhow - I found how to fix the result of the install but now I am scared to try again. It looks like there is no Fglrx driver compatible for Kali rolling right now, bump.

[TaiTair]

Update:

I am getting closer.

I think I have found the cause of the problem. Fglrx needs a patch or the kernel needs a patch.

I added the source for Debian Jessie to my sources.list.

Then I started by installing dependencies for fglrx like libfgrlx. Some of those dependencies were old packages like glx-diversions(which was not installed anyway so i figured why not downgrade). I managed to install all the dependencies with old versions:

sudo apt-get install glx-diversions=0.5.1

is an example.

At this point I figured might as well try building the kernel module before trying to install the driver.

I installed fglrx-source and module-assistant. Used module assistant to try and build the kernel module, unsuccessfully.

I have attached a log file of the build. It seems the error comes from a function in firegl_public.c, specifically the function 'get_user_pages'.

There are a lot of notes and warnings.

There are one or two unique errors and a recurring one which I think is the root of the problem.

The recurring error looks like:

error: too many arguments to function ‘get_user_pages’
     ret = get_user_pages(current, current->mm, vaddr, page_cnt, 0, 0, (struct page **)page_list, NULL);

Pretty sure kernel needs a patch so that this can work.

PS: after an apt-cache showpkg fglrx, I cannot seem to get a version however, the fglrx source shows version: 1:15.9-4~deb8u2

Getting closer - I am not very familiar with C/kernel code however, would need some help and I hope this can further the progress. Cheers.

[TaiTair]

Update:

After further researching the Open-Source Radeon driver I realized that it supported 3D for my card. So I figured, my problem might be related to what I am trying to do. In my situation I was not trying to use the GPU to crack anything. I was trying to use it with OpenGL to render shaders.

Apparently the radeon driver does not support my Evergreen chipset/SUMO bridge for computing shaders... Awww. I might keep working on FGLRX when I have the time.

I think going from openGL3.0 to openGL4.5 might help solve my shader problem but I don't think the Open-Source Radeon driver is this far yet.

Every step I took is in this post however so if anyone feels like patching firegl_public.c for kernel 4.6.. :P

Hopefully radeon works with gpu cracking. I might try at some point. Cheers.

[sh333p]

Update:

After further researching the Open-Source Radeon driver I realized that it supported 3D for my card. So I figured, my problem might be related to what I am trying to do. In my situation I was not trying to use the GPU to crack anything. I was trying to use it with OpenGL to render shaders.

Apparently the radeon driver does not support my Evergreen chipset/SUMO bridge for computing shaders... Awww. I might keep working on FGLRX when I have the time.

I think going from openGL3.0 to openGL4.5 might help solve my shader problem but I don't think the Open-Source Radeon driver is this far yet.

Every step I took is in this post however so if anyone feels like patching firegl_public.c for kernel 4.6.. :P

Hopefully radeon works with gpu cracking. I might try at some point. Cheers.

Having the same problem, using HD Radeon 6950. Seems like everyone is having the same problem but theres no solution, quite surprised about the lack of documentation on this as using nvidia on kali seems to have an endless amount of information.
I also managed to get till the end of the installation but failed at the dkms part and cant solve it.

I really wish I had the technical skills to help you out TaiTair, but I dont. so now im crossing my thumbs that you can figure this one out and share your knowledge so I can also get my ati drivers to work properly...
Do you have any updates on the matter?

[Mr_Kci]

[UPDATE 03/1/17] So apologies for throwing this out there and not updating sooner, its been a busy year - babies, moving house, new job etc.

so, for me specifically and my use case - this is SOLVED - I attempted many fixes to this - even bought myself a SSD cloner so when I screwed up a step, I could roll back without an entire reinstall. However, my original goal was to get my GPU password cracking working again on Kali. early in 2017, Kali release version 2017.2 (I believe) - this came with CUDA support right out of the box!! so I sold my beloved AMD Radeon R9 295 X2 for a very good price on ebay, and bought 2 Nvidia equivalents - Titan X - so I'm back to crunching about 450,000 passwords per second - not as fast as the 2x AMD's, but as you read above, there throughput was zero due to this problem.

It took me so long to try and resolve this, Hashcat found an issue with Aircracks cap file conversion and created a new tool to correct it, and oclhashcat seems defunked and I'm back to using Hashcat straight...wow, how things change.

Sorry I couldn't crack the actual driver issue for you guys, it seems that there are ALLOT of people with this issue - 19,000 reviews of this post! AMD need to pull their finger out I think!