john.parnefjord.se Reflections & findings

The driver for ATI with DRI-support is a bit flaky in Ubuntu Breezy Badger. The version shipped with Breezy is 8.16.20 and I have had problems getting full resolution on my Dell Latitude D600. It just refuses to turn on the 1400×1050 resolution and switches down to 1024×768 mode. I found some guidelines of how to deal with this and this is a synopsis of how I got it working.

1. Remove Breezy’s included drivers if they are installed:
   

   sudo apt-get remove xorg-driver-fglrx
   sudo apt-get remove fglrx-control
   sudo apt-get remove linux-restricted-modules-$(uname -r)
   

2. Change to ATI-driver

   Do this either by running this command and selecting ati:
   sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

   Select the ATI driver or change it by editing xorg.conf directly.

3. Reboot.
4. Download the ATI driver installer from ati.com [Driver & Software > Linux Display Drivers and Software >
   RADEON 8500 Series and higher > ATI Proprietary Linux x86… > ATI Driver Installer]
5. Create the packages
   

   sudo apt-get install gcc-3.4 module-assistant build-essential fakeroot dh-make debconf libstdc++5 gcc-3.3-base
   sudo sh ./ati-driver-installer-8.19.10-i386.run –buildpkg Ubuntu/breezy
   sudo dpkg -i xorg-driver-fglrx_8.19.10-1_i386.deb
   sudo dpkg -i fglrx-control_8.19.10-1_i386.deb
   sudo dpkg -i fglrx-kernel-source_8.19.10-1_i386.deb
   

6. Now compile the kernel driver
   

   sudo module-assistant prepare
   sudo module-assistant update
   sudo module-assistant a-i fglrx
   

7. Update your xorg.conf for fglrx. To do it automatically:
   

   sudo aticonfig –initial