How to fix “The system is running in low-graphics mode” error
I recently updated my Ubuntu 16.04 Linux machine through Software Updater, and when I rebooted, I got the dreaded “The system is running in low-graphics mode” error. I tried many things before finding this solution:
First of all, I have an AMD Radeon RX-480 GPU.
Get to a command line:
Ctrl-Alt-F1
Authenticate with username and password
Download the latest driver from AMD:
wget --referer=http://support.amd.com https://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ubuntu/amdgpu-pro-17.10-429170.tar.xz
Note the user of referer. Without it, you won't be able to download the compressed tar.
Uncompress the tar:
tar -Jxvf amdgpu-pro-17.10-429170.tar.xz
Run the install script:
cd amdgpu-pro-17.10-429170
./amdgpu-pro-install -y
Reboot
sudo reboot
This worked for me. My GUI came back, GNOME loaded, and I was able to live to compute another day. :)
I hope this works for you if you're in a similar situation with Ubuntu and an AMD GPU. Good luck!