HP Envy Ubuntu/Linux Day 3

After battling video issues with a failed Windows 8 install where the HDMI wouldn't work, I decided to try Ubuntu.  I gave myself however long HP would take to delivery the recovery disks to get some working video with the ATI graphics in the laptop and hopefully get the HDMI working.

I spent almost an entire day trying to get Ubuntu to take the AMD drivers with no luck - I couldn't get the fglrx prerequisite to load properly.

So I threw that out and went with the latest disto of OpenSuse.  After another 4 or 5 hours I finally managed to get the fglrx to load and the latest Beta AMD Catalyst drivers to install without error.  But then it turns out the fglrx I got to load wouldn't work with the muxless Intel/ATI hybrid in this laptop and there is no option in the BIOS to force the laptop to only use the ATI graphics. 

The recovery disks arrived today so I guess this laptop will go to its death with Windows 7.