HP Envy 14 Laptop - The race is on between Ubuntu and USPS

I had an HP Envy 14 (1010rn) that shipped with windows 7.  Back when windows 8 was released, I stupidly upgraded to Windows 8 pro but quickly discovered the video card (AMD Radeon 5000 Mobile) was not supported under windows 8 by HP or AMD.  So I waited a year, hoping sooner or later someone would release a driver but apparently that is never going to happen.  I really want the HDMI out to work so I can use this old laptop to stream some stuff to my TV.  So Windows 8 has got to go.

I then tried to use the recovery partition from the original HP Drive, but of course windows 8 boot loader had rendered that useless.  Then I figured I'd install Windows 8.1 just to check, but it wouldn't install because apparently the recovery partition for Windows is too small.

Finally I figured I wasted enough time and ordered the original recovery media from HP.  Today is Dec 2, and estimated arrival date is Dec 10th.  I figured the laptop is screwed anyway, so I'll put on Ubuntu and if it works by Dec 10, Ubuntu stays, else recovery time.  The race is ON.

First, it too had video card problems which I finally solved by adding radeon.modest=0 to the boot options line (Press any key when the small logo appears at the bottom to enter the advanced start page. Then press F6 for other options (but don't select anything), press Esc to return to the Boot Options line. There you should add radeon.modeset=0)

This enabled setup to run although it set the brightness to zero so I also have to press F3 (or fn-F3 if you've made normal function keys the default behavior is the bios).

Next was wireless issues.  When I ran the installation it connected to my wifi with no issues, but after the install completed, I had no WIFI.

I connected the Ethernet cable and ran System Settings -> Additional Drivers.

There it wanted to install a Broadcom STA Wireless driver and the ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX driver.

Both failed to install.  The ATI video driver is a known issue  . After rebooting, it seemed to be working however so I ignored it.  Of course, at this point I discovered that the HDMI is not working under Ubuntu either, which was my main reason for giving up on Windows 8 Pro.  I also noticed that if you go back into Additional Drivers, it shows as Activated but not in use. 

After wasting an hour Googling other peoples suggestions, and realizing Ubuntu is as Microsoft when it comes to moving things around, I gave up trying to fix the WiFi directly and instead got about applying the 150+ other updates it wanted over the Ethernet connection.  Lo and Behold, when complete with those updates, the WiFi driver started working.

At this point I returned to the video drivers - I uninstalled the ATi driver and reinstalled.  This time it didn't give an error installing, but it still shows as activated but not currently in use.

Time wasted so far on Ubuntu - 4 Hours.

Tomorrow: Time to keep working on the video drivers to try to get HDMI working.