Fix Ubuntu 9.04 ATI Driver Issue

199 thoughts on “Fix Ubuntu 9.04 ATI Driver Issue”

1. also a quick mention, you need to activate the ATI FGLRX driver under Hardware Drivers and then reboot again.

2. Worked like a charm, with Nicholas’ addendum above. Thanks!

3. glxgears along with any 3D application fails to run.

4. Same problem. Looks now like opengl is not working anymore.

   Who have an idea ?

   glxgears
   Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0”.
   X Error of failed request: BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation)
   Major opcode of failed request: 158 (GLX)
   Minor opcode of failed request: 19 (X_GLXQueryServerString)
   Serial number of failed request: 11
   Current serial number in output stream: 11

5. libdrm2 must be downgraded as well.

6. I am so surprised that there isn’t any decent tutorial to carry out this simple task. This one by Tyler is the best I have been able to find so far. Unfortunately, it is not perfect – “libdrm2” should be downgraded and locked to the version included in Intrepid as well. I hope this nice tutorial will be updated accordingly. Oddly enough, I have been having problems with my graphics adapter (RADEON 9800SE) and fglrx since Ubuntu 8.04 – graphics is heavily corrupted when showing a OpenGL window occupying more than 70% of the screen. Moreover, it seems to be much slower than the open source driver. Thomas, let me know if it works for you.

7. I’ll get it updated soon. When I can get access to the laptop that I used to figure it all out.

8. I did what was said here and it worked like a charm. The only thing bothering me though is that my CPU usage is at its maximum all the time now. I don’t know what to do to fix this. Would you think installing the latest Catalyst 9.6 driver from AMD will fix this?

   Appreciate your help.

9. The latest version of Catalyst doesn’t support the older cards which this tutorial is designed to fix, so updating to the latest driver defeats the purpose.

10. Thanks a lot Tyler. I was wondering then if there’s a solution for the high CPU. Is there a way to switch between drivers? I know this sounds silly but I’m new to ubuntu and I sometimes want to enjoy the 3D games and applications in which case i can bear with the high CPU. But most of the time i use the my laptop for normal stuff like web suring,watching movies,etc. So basically I wont mind rolling the driver back to fix this issue.

    Again I want to thank you for fixing the most annoying bug that faced me since shifting to ubuntu.

11. It’s no problem.
    Enabling and disabling the driver might be a little annoying, but you should be able to do that in the “Hardware Drivers” tool under System > Administration. I will require a restart every time you do that.

12. Excellent job. Thanks so much for this article.

13. The procedure featured in this article does not give 3D support.
    –
    sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.bak
    –
    sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list
    –
    In gedit, replace all the occurrences of “jaunty” with “intrepid”, close the editor and save the file.
    –
    sudo apt-get update
    –
    sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg
    –
    sudo apt-get install libdrm2=2.3.1-0build1 xorg-driver-fglrx
    –
    In Synaptic Package Manager, lock all of the xserver-xorg*, fglrx*, xorg-driver-fglrx and libdrm2 packages at their current version.
    –
    sudo mv /etc/apt/sources.list.bak /etc/apt/sources.list
    –
    Restart your computer. Go to the Hardware drivers manager under the System menu: Administration > Hardware drivers. Enable the ATI driver and reboot again.
    –
    Have a lot of fun.

14. Thank you Dario, I have added your suggestion to the instructions. Now I don’t have to get to the computer with the issue to update the article! 😀

15. You’re welcome. Let me know if it works for you. If glxgears runs with the proprietary driver installed, that should be a proof that it is working.

16. Thanks a lot! Your articles works pretty well here!

17. Great tutorial! Fixed my lack-of-3D-support/ATI problem in Jaunty! Thank you. The best and most correct Jaunty downgrade-to-enable-fglrx tutorial I have found. Searched for hours

18. What do I do when I can’t even get Xubuntu installed with my ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9700 AGP?

    1. I’m thinking you could probably install using the alternative, text based installer.

19. Hi, Thanks for your solution, it really works! BUT after I did this following the instruction, I have the same ‘High CPU’ problem as nghalion. How can I fix it?

20. I found the solution for the high CPU problem!
    Downgrade the package gnome-session. Use the intrepid package.
    Only this! Sorry for my poor english!

21. Oh good! I just fixed it in the post. Thanks for your help, I don’t have the old ATI card any more, so I couldn’t get it fixed.

22. I googled a lot to find the fix!
    I fell happy for help!

23. Ahh, great, been worrying that I have to revert completely to 8.10 🙂

    Btw, anybody knows if this works as well with the latest released drivers (Catalyst 9.3 v 8.593, the Ubuntu 8.10 drivers are v 8.543)?

24. With the older cards, only the older driver works. That is what is accomplished in this tutorial – downgrading from the latest version of the driver, to the older one which is included in 8.10. The fglrx packages are the ATI drivers.

25. “latest released drivers” above was of course refering to latest supporting old hardware.

    Meanwhile, for those running Xubuntu 9.04, skipping anything with gnome-session should be safe since it’s not installed by default 🙂

26. Oh, I miss understood you. Sorry about that.

27. NP, my message was unclear 🙂

28. I can confirm this works with the 9.3 v8.953 version from the ati website too. Thanks a lot for this guide 🙂

29. I’m still pretty green at the command line…can somebody go into detail on how to uninstall the ATI drivers that are being used in Mythbuntu 9.04

30. Worked like a charm – thanks a million. The only problem I noticed is that after the upgrade the Restart and Shut down does not work for the Fast User Switch Applet. To fix it though I downgraded the version used on Jaunty to that of Intrepid with fast-user-switch-applet=2.24.0-0ubuntu6. Also added that package to be locked in Synaptic.

31. > I’m still pretty green at the command line…can somebody go into detail on how to uninstall the ATI drivers that are being used in Mythbuntu 9.04

    —

    Don’t bother with commandline then. Just start up synaptic, search for fglrx and uninstall them if they are installed. 🙂

32. Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0″.
    Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0″.
    Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0″.
    Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0″.

    I keep getting this error after downgrading the libdrm2

    Is there any solution ? I followed the updated tutorial.

33. trying this on kubuntu is not working. having issues with libc version and the kpackagekit hangs on querying due to that reason.

    i installed manually the binary driver from ati it works but no compiz possible as it fails to load.

    After installing the binary driver the hardware driver fglrx option appeared trying to install it gives an error of held packages

    after reverting back to jaunty source list it is now working and i am actually still waiting for it to work hopefully this would work

    i really hate ATI for there weak and inadequte support btw my display card is ati 1100

34. 🙁 jocky backend crashed really horrible i also hate kpackagekit it is really a very weak tool no other option but to use open source drivers

35. I tried to follow this guide on ubuntu 9.04 with a ATI Radeon x600, I followed every step and it worked fine.
    However when trying to run the only game I need to run on linux, Heroes of Newerth, it is much more sloppy and laggy compared to when I was running it on 08.04. I’m also having some problems with the game like updating it, that I did not have when running it on 08.04.
    The game runs, but running it through terminal gives me 7 examples of this error:
    Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0”.

    Any thoughts if the error is related to the performance and if there is something I did wrong or something else?

    Thanks in advance.

36. How do I undo this if they finally make drivers compatible drivers?

    Thank you

37. Ati already said that this cards are no longer supported !

38. Indeed, the AMD/ATI plan is to support all the old cards/ships only via open source drivers. As it is they are unfortunately not up to snuff in the 3D department, which is what is giving all these headaches. In principle though I’m supportive of the OS drivers, but I think the move might have been a bit too premature. Hopefully, in 6mo-1year, people will hapilly be running their cards with fully working OS 3D drivers, but right now tricks like this or sticking with 8.10 versions is the only real approach.

39. @Cooly
    Im also getting loads of
    Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0″.
    in console. I just ignore them since things seems to work fine for me in any case. Do you see any actual problems except for these warnings?

40. I did all that and now on reboot I get a command line login.
    where to from here?

41. Ok I am doing a reinstall of Jaunty. And then will try again. Maybe I went wrong somewhere?
    I got Gnome to start but then will still not get a gui screen

42. I did everything as described too and I also have a command line login. When I log in I am trying to start GUI but It doesn’t work at all. It says
    xinit: Connection refused (errno 111): unable to connect to X server
    xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error.

    I do not want to reinstal Ubuntu, I would rather try to fix it. If anyone can help It would be hoghly appreciated.

43. I used sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start. Got the reply that it was started. Then alt f7 to supposedly get to the gui but all i get there is the cursor. In the start up I did see line about apache. Is that part of the standard Jaunty build?

44. Hmm, I don’t think Apache comes installed default. I doubt that would affect anything though.

45. Ok when it came to locking the packages I tried the command line but I got an error to do with pipes. So I locked with synaptic. But I dont think i ran this “sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list.bak /etc/apt/sources.list”. Not that that should have stopped the GUI right?

46. Yeah, all that did was back up the sources.list for a quick restore.

47. Ok I am going to do the whole thing again now. When I locked the packages I just did a search as you had it eg xserver-xorg* and locked that.
    Is the command line a better way?
    Thanks
    Btw I have a Radeon Mobility x700.

48. I had to use Synaptic because the packages weren’t locking from the terminal.

49. Ok here goes then. 🙂

50. Nope the same thing just a command line login prompt .

51. when trying to start x I get “fatal server error:no screens found”

52. Right I dropped to root and ran “aticonfig –initial”
    This seems to have given me back my Gui but it is all blocky.
    Turned off Desktop effects.
    All Ok
    I seem to have lost my touch pads ability to double click.
    That I will work on and I will try dream chess for a start.

53. Nope Just get blocky artefacts with 3d

54. It worked! Thank you all so much 🙂

55. Hey Tyler, great tutorial. I followed this like 3 weeks ago and had good success.

    But the 2 newest editions are exclussive to Ubuntu, and don’t apply to Xubuntu. So when users like me are removing and adding

    gnome-session fast-user-switch-applet

    we are hitting errors. It was only after realizing that I never had these installed on my system that I didn’t need to “reinstall” them. This removed all the dependency troubles I was hitting when trying to re-add “gnome-session fast-user-switch-applet”, because they were never a part of my system. Could you clarify for other-flavor ubuntu users? at least Xubuntu…?

    Thanks for the best downgrade-xorg-to-get-ATI-to-work tutorial on the web!!!

56. Oh, yeah. I probably should have put something about that in there 😀 Thanks!

57. You are my hero mate! Works like charm with an old Intel [email protected] with ati x1650 (agp)

    Let me share some of my experiences though. (Note that i’m a total ubuntu newb) I followed all the steps except installing fglrx from the repo. I built the officiall ati package, and installed for that. Well, that DID NOT work. My loging screen went fubar (as before downgrading X ;)), so i removed the installed files, and used the ones in the intrepid repo. (As this article tells)

    Since i corrupted my screen dozen times, here are my scripts, to restore a working condition.
    Before you start everything backup your working /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

    sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak

    If your comp frozes, or screen corrupt, restart in recovery mode (i use dual boot, so i’m not sure if you get boot menu without it), and drop to root.

    apt-get remove fglrx-amdcccle fglrx-kernel-source xorg-driver-fglrx

    will remove the installed fglrx stuff.

    cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak /etc/X11/xorg.conf

    will restore the original conf. Reboot, and you should see the original, probably working gui.

    Might be trivial to you guys, but i had to do this a lot, till i got ati working.

    have fun, and thanks again,
    udi

    PS: ‘*’ is not working in my synaptic 😉

58. Yay, i did it!

    My final challange in “getting rid of winXP”, that i couldn’t get WoW running with wine, even with this intrepid repo driver, until now.

    Ati 9.1 is working! /happydance

59. Thank you soooo much!!!! I have no idea why this isn’t mirrored over at the ubuntu wiki. Note for kubuntu users…you don’t have to worry about gnome-session or fast-user-switch from what I can tell. Oh and aptitude is a nice command line tool that makes holding packages pretty easy–just find the package and press “=” and a lower case ‘h’ appears next to the package name.

60. Pingback: UdiEgoBlog ™ » Blog Archive » ati, wine: WoW!

61. I followed the exact instructions, and worked out correctly on Kubuntu 9.04.
    Of course couldn’t downgrade gnome-sessions and fast-user-switch, but no problem.
    Tyler, I would put an advise to kubuntu users not to worry about the error on those packages, to avoid further headaches to newbies!… like me!
    glxgears works, although I get the xlib error message, and lower performance that previously with the original packages. Still not bad: 2500 fps vs 1500 fps now, on a X1600.
    xrandr not working now, but at least I got dual head working, finally!!

    Thanks a lot for the great tutorial

62. Tank you so much for this great tutorial!
    I have made a tutorial at ubuntuforum, linking and crediting you. I hope you dont mind!
    http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7890066#post7890066
    If there is any problem with it, I can remowe or edit it! Just tell me.
    Tanx again for making this possible.

    Cheers
    Gizmopower

    1. It is completely fine with me! Thanks!

63. I will give it a try.
    I got a ATI x1650 pro AGP that gave me a major headache in hardy and gutsy, I will reply if it worked.

64. Tank YOU Tyler! Done this twice now and what I found was:

    Readon9800pro

    Without updating drivers any further I get:
    25000fps 5/sek, 5000fps

    I updated to 9.3 and only got:
    5000fps 5/sek, 1000fps

    Tested FPS with glxgears wich I know is not accurate but this was very notable in games like: Nexuiz

65. Ah, one more thing!
    Should the files be unlocked after doing this?
    I dont think so but many asked about that.

66. Im getting:

    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    Package xserver-xorg is not available, but is referred to by another package.
    This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
    is only available from another source
    However the following packages replace it:
    xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-core
    E: Package xserver-xorg has no installation candidate

    Is it the package sites thats down temporaly ?

67. everything seems to have worked well but i keep getting this error.

    Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0”.

    any idea how to fix it?

68. Worked as charm!!! Thank you very much!

69. Hi,

    i have tried it. Thanks a lot. It works perfectly. But i still have the “HIGH CPU” problem. What should i do ?

    Toshiba laptop A100-766
    Grafik card : ATI X1400.

    i’m sorry for my poor english.

    Slim.

70. I’m sorry my laptop is Toshiba Satellite A100-788.

71. The processor is : Core Duo T2250 1.73 GHz

    sorry for the multi-posts.

72. ref: radeon 9800 pro with ubuntu 0.04.
    did everything step by step and got to the restart. i was just ready to activate driver under Hardware Drives and I’ve noticed my box in EMPTY: “No proprietary drivers are in use on this system”, so there’s nothing I can Enable.
    any thoughts ?

    PS: I’m very green with linux 🙂 in process of learning. real process :))

    THX to all of you!

73. All works perfectly after the first restart. The driver card is activated. But now i can’t anything see when i start ubuntu. To start i must use xfix(to restore the default grafic configuration. And the card is desactivated. When i active the driver i have the same problem at the next restart. (black-screen).

    Thx.

74. I have ATI x1650 AGP and everything works just fine, but the only problem is that after every restart I lose my screen resolution 1280×1024 at 85HZ because It is displayed at maximum resolution of graphic card with very low refresh rate. Does anybody know how to rember mine optimal screen resolution or I must after every retart again manually configure mine screen resolution with ATI CCC.
    Tyler thank you very much for this superb post and also thx to everbody else how helped with theirs experince and clever tips.

75. Slim can you see you user name nad pass after boot? If you can then press ctrl+alt+f1 and try with this:
    sudo apt-get remove compiz
    sudo apt-get remove compiz-core
    or go to recovery mode and in the root shell wrote this commands. After that if you can see your uBuntu Desktop than you must again activate you ATI drivers. Restart and we will see. I did so and for now it is work. Only have problem with resolution after every restart so I must manually reconfigure my ATI. Cheers.. 😉

76. I can’t run well game 3D, blank and then hang !!

77. It worked for me, after running glxgears i am averaging 900-1100 fps, same as in 8.04
    Make sure you drop to a root console login and run aticonfig –initial and let the driver make your xorg.conf unless you know what to put in it
    I am still getting one error
    Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0”.
    but it does not bother me at the moment i dont play games on cpu
    plays movies good here

78. Well this did not work at all for me.

    Be aware that it’s pretty easy to hose your system doing this. Just an FYI.

    The easiest fix is to get a different video card, preferably one that doesn’t need old ATI drivers.

79. And here is where I must repeat my warning 😉

    WARNING: Running commands as root (using sudo or su) can potentially damage your operating system. Be sure to CAREFULLY read EVERYTHING. Only proceed with these steps if you are confident with what you are doing.

80. It took me over an hour searching the internet to find this awesome webpage howto. Hopefully these keywords so that others may find it easier.

    Solved
    ATI Radeon 9500 Series
    ATI Radeon 9550 Series
    ATI Radeon 9600 Series
    ATI Radeon 9700 Series
    ATI Radeon 9800 Series
    ATI Radeon X300 Series
    ATI Radeon X550 Series
    ATI Radeon X600 Series
    ATI Radeon X700 Series
    ATI Radeon X800 Series
    ATI Radeon X850 Series
    ATI Radeon X1050 Series
    ATI Radeon X1300 Series
    ATI Radeon X1550 Series
    ATI Radeon X1600 Series
    ATI Radeon X1650 Series
    ATI Radeon X1800 Series
    ATI Radeon X1900 Series
    ATI Radeon Xpress Series
    ATI Radeon Xpress 200
    ATI Radeon X1200 Series
    ATI Radeon X1250 Series
    ATI Radeon X2100 Series

81. Tyler, if I’m ever in your town I owe you a beer 🙂

    Thanks for this fix, it worked great on my Gateway laptop with ATI X300 graphics.

    I did run into one issue- after activating the ATI driver and rebooting, I got a great big watermark in the bottom right corner of my screen with an AMD/ATI logo warning me of “Unsupported Hardware”. If anybody else runs into this, this is how I fixed it:

    1. Download the 9.3 legacy driver package from ati at this page:
    http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Legacy/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.7&product=2.7.4.3.3.3.1&lang=English

    2. Extract (don’t install!) the files from the 9.3 package to a folder with a command like:
    sh ati-driver-installer-9-3-x86.x86_64 –extract driverfiles

    3. Replace your ATI ‘control’ file with the one from this 9.3 package:

    First back up your existing file just in case:
    sudo cp /etc/ati/control /etc/ati/control.backup

    Then copy the new file in place:
    sudo cp driverfiles/common/etc/ati/control /etc/ati

    4. Reboot and profit! No more watermark.

    Thanks again.

82. Followed you tutorial, and as far as I can see it works. Still gotta do some wine installs though. Quick question, will installing the KDE package create any discrepencies with this downgrade?

83. I don’t think KDE will have an issue. The computer I made this tutorial on had KDE and Gnome installed (using Gnome as the main environment).

84. How can i do everything from beginning ?

    must i remove packages ?

85. Is this a new functional driver ?
    http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.4.2&product=2.4.2.3.9&lang=English&rev=9.9&ostype=Linux%20×86

86. After activating the ATI Driver from i reboot the system. At start i have a black screen who make sometime a small mouvement like water but i see no logo for AMD/Ati. (Is that the watermark ?) I have done what Mark says but nothing changes.

    My card is a Mobility Radeon X1400. ( i think that it’s not supported by this driver )

    Sorry for my poor english and for the multi-post. But i must diminuate the screen brightness and contrast because it makes my screen and my eyes busy.

87. Hey Tyler

    Thank you for this guide! Worked flawlessly for my Sony VAIO with Mobility Radeon X2300. Now my system doesn’t crash when I start 3D games.

    Furthermore I don’t get a ‘red screen of death’ when I shutdown anymore (previously had this using the ati drivers).

    Desktop effects are a little less smooth than before but that doesn’t really matter, considering that all the 3D games work perfectly now.

    Wow! I can hardly believe it after looking high and low for a solution (:

    Thanks a million!

88. Pingback: A-Blog » Драйвер ATI в Ubuntu 9.04. Решение проблемы.

89. Thank you. I was looking for such a guide for several days already. Perfectly written, 100% effective for me. That’s the way to show linux to us, ex-win users. Thanks again.

90. Well, KDE worked fine with this whole set up “as was expected”. But due to my own Epic Fail I had to reinstall Jaunty. I just finished your process and I’m coming up with new errors while trying to run WoW (worked great the first time). is there a way to completely roll-back this configuration or am I looking at another reinstall. thnx for the info

91. Excellent tutorial!! I had one issue though. After going through this, the option for 1680×1050 did not show up for me to choose. I ended up having to do this:

    sudo aticonfig –initial

    Then logout and login again before it showed up.

    Again, thanks for the excellent tip!!

92. everything looks fine with my ATI X1600. Thnx a lot!!!

93. thank you
    i had no idea of anything (i’m a nob) you explained it so clearly… and the commands, i just copied everything and pasted in the terminal, flawless you rock.
    ATI HD 2600 XT

94. Hey, thanks for the guide, got me far, but i’m still running in some issues here.

    The install went fine, got everything sorted, but its not 100%.

    I have a mobility x1600, on ubuntu 9.2. I installed the drivers as written in the guide. Then, on a couple of restarts:

    1 – When i log in, i get a black screen, then it gets to my desktop – seems normal in my eyes.

    2 – Now here it gets weird: At my desktop, i cannot select the top and bottom bar. They stay white, no icons appear, and sometimes they are “tearing”.

    3 – Workaround i found is, open any movie, put it in fullscreen, then the desktop appears as normal.

    4 – Any movies play flashing black, and cannot be watched properly.

    The driver you used in your guide, is it optimized for mobility radeon cards? If not, how can you update mobility cards properly?

95. The downgrade provides one with the ATI drivers and Xserver from Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.

96. How does this work in Kubuntu 9.04 64-bits?

97. deze fouten krijg ik:

    lib32gcc1: Vereisten: gcc-4.3-base (= 4.3.2-1ubuntu12) maar 4.3.3-5ubuntu4 zal geïnstalleerd worden

    libc6-i386: Vereisten: libc6 (= 2.8~20080505-0ubuntu9) maar 2.9-4ubuntu6.1 zal geïnstalleerd worden

98. In theory it should work just as fine as long as you don’t install the Ubuntu packages for “gnome-session” “fast-user-switch-applet”

99. Thanks a lot!! the flickering on the right side of the screen is now gone. But. i’m wondering if anyone had the same flickering problem with movie player in windowed mode, it’s okay for fullscreen. because before i do the downgrade, the movie works just fine.

100. Somehow, updating to KDE 4.3.2 seems to have overuled my locking of the xserver package, and everything broke again. I’ll try to re-downgrade now. But this guide worked for me the first time. 🙂

101. I LOVE YOUUU THANKS

102. Worked like a charm!! relived… Worked on ubuntu jaunty 9.04 x64 with ati HHD 3200 graphics.. thanx a ton!!!

103. Thanks, nice work…

104. I must have missed something on your Ubuntu 9.04 ATI drivers video fix, because after rebooting my machine, NOTHING seemed to have changed. I’ve got an M2A-VM mb.

     sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg fglrx-amdcccle fglrx-kernel-source xorg-drivesession fast-user-switch-applet=2.24.0-0ubuntu6
     [sudo] password for al:
     Reading package lists… Done
     Building dependency tree
     Reading state information… Done
     xserver-xorg is already the newest version.
     E: Couldn’t find package fglrx-amdcccle

     So? What’s the deal? I’m trying to increase my video frame rate from about 5 to 14 fps so I can fly FlightGear in my puter. I’m not a geek, I’m not a puter genious, I’m a user who needs accurate information which WORKS. This didn’t. Now what?

     Thanks.

105. For the missing package, there are two possible issues: Your system is acting up from the start? or You may need to enable Extra repositories (this can be done in Synaptic under Settings > Repositories).

     Seeing how it says xserver-xorg is already installed, It appears you typed or copied something wrong in an earlier step which means that both issues are not the fault of my tutorial.

     A third thing – This tutorial is not guaranteed to work for all cards, however in theory it will work for all cards that were supported by the ATI driver included in Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10).

106. Thanks for the great instructions!
     But, I have a minor problem (and hopefully not a stupid one).
     The “Shutdown” option from my System menu has disappeared. I’m not using the “fast-user-switch-applet” and I know about those items disappearing when it is used in Jaunty. I still have “Lock Screen” and “Log Out” options, so I’m confused as to why only the “Shutdown” option is gone.
     Any help would be great.

107. From what I know, the Shutdown option isn’t available when you login using “startx” from a terminal. That’s the only think I know that would cause it.

108. I have a Sapphire Radeon X1650/512 AGP, just like Udi (@Udi: I thought we were talking about 9.3 here, but you are using 9.1?)
     I tried this tutorial exactly as described. No errors. Activated the driver, but still got the same Urban Terror crash. It seems like it might be power supply issue (I have like 7 hard drive in this computer, on a 650W)? After the crash, I have to ‘autofix’ graphics issues in recovery mode (which deactivates the driver). I have reactivated, and been able use the computer, but each times it crashes in the game, I have to do the same thing. [I also see a performance decrease in movie framerate]. I guess the only way to know for sure is to get rid of some drives, or get a bigger power supply? Or is there something else to try?

109. Just gotta say thanks Tyler,
     it works with my Radeon 9600Pro, the only issue is that I have a wacom graphire 3 tablet that worked, but after applying this fix it does not. I have read on another forum that I needed to re-install hal on synaptic package manager to fix this issue. I did this, My wacom then worked perfectly, but non of my 3d applications would start up and my hardware drivers have disappeared in Administration/Hardware Drivers. When this fix is applied does the downgraded xserver interfere with the wacom config? Cheers again as this had me stumped as for a long while and being a complete ubuntu and linux noob this kinda help is essential. Thanks again

110. KUDOS to you my man!! This one rocks!!!! works like a charm 🙂 tnx alot

111. Thanks Tyler!:)

     Darn it was a bit tricky,
     but that’s why i love Lunix!
     Making you work before playing…;)
     ~@AI had the same problem at first, but what tyler told you should work.
     I did a whole Synaptic update for “jaunty” first before changing it to “interpid”(was a 200mb download).
     Then went to add&remove software and installed the ATI drivers.And finally edited my Xorg file to match my sys and then restarted my baby..;)

     PS. i’m using ATI HD 3600 512mb Silent

     Tyler is King!

112. Hi,

     My Wolfenstein:Enemy Territory on standard install Ubuntu 9.04 ran very very slow.

     After trying different solutions with drivers for the ATI mobility Radeon HD 2400 this above solution by Tyler works !

     I’ve got Wolf:ET finally running on my Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pi2550 now.
     Just great !
     Yez !

     THX SO MUCH !
     LUV U Tyler !
     🙂

     Grtz. Kim

113. Thanks man, you’re a great! I’ve an AMD Turion + ATIx1300 and now, everything is working perfectly.

114. i guess i done something wrong along the way, after reboot, i got 2 white screen. Any how i can fix this?

115. Hi Tyler,

     I followed the instructions here but it failed when I was trying to install xorg-driver-fglrx. It says it depends on libc-i386, which depends on libc6. I have already libc6 installed. So I got stuck in the middle. I had to uninstalled
     fglx-amdcccle and xserver-xorg and then installed xserver-xorg from the jaunty version to be able to start x again. What do you suggest? I have Radeon X1200.

     Thanks

116. Hi Everbody,
     I followed this tutorial to the best of my ability, and broke my x. Probably did something I wasn’t supposed to. Anyhow, if you want to go back the way before:
     Remove libgl1-mesa-glx
     Remove libgl1-mesa-dri
     go through and unlock all of the packages you locked
     reinstall a good lot of them

117. Ok… first, when I found this guide I thought it would make to I could play 3D chess, but all it did is When I updated it went to really basic with just metacity no desktop effects (I had compiz enabled).

118. oops… I pushed the send button too soon, anyway… How do I undo what I did in this tutorial?

119. do I do what “Failed” said?

120. Thankz….U do the great job

121. Thank you so much, i followed the directions exactly and it worked out great. Only thing is compiz flickers and window dragging feels different.

122. I wanted to fix a few little bugs with open ati driver ao attempted the above method. Every single step was performed. Left with ubuntu struggling in low graphics mode. The ati display driver did not appear in hardware drivers section. Something not right with my hardware (ati 9700 radeon) or ubuntu community NEED to really sort out the disparity with the driver support.

123. In the end, did complete re-install which was actually rather painless. Faith restored!

124. Thank you

     hope its not happened at ubuntu karmic 🙂

125. Well, We’ll see! I’m going to try it out once my CD gets here… which will be in several weeks.

126. anyone tried these drivers with ati x550 ???
     even on windows x550 had problems with drivers :S:S

127. Does this tutorial works on karmic?

128. In theory, it should work in Karmic, but I haven’t tested it.

129. Hello,
     I have tried to do this on my computer (Ubuntu 9.04 and ati xpress 1150), but I have a problem, you say :
     “After you restart, make sure to go to the Hardware Drivers manager under the “System” menu: Administration > Hardware Drivers and enable that ATI driver and reboot again.”

     But Ubuntu doesn’t purpose me to install the ati driver ! I’m remember that it’s works when I was in ubuntu 8.10, but now nothing.
     If I install the 9.3 legacy driver package, I have the good resolution (1280×800), but I don’t have the graphic acceleration, so I can’t choose to put visual effects in extra.

     Do you know if there is a solution ?
     Thank you.

130. After following the tutorial, you shouldn’t need to install the driver in the Hardware Driver manager. The driver just needs to be enabled then the system restarted.

131. “EDIT 06/05/09: After you restart, make sure to go to the Hardware Drivers manager under the “System” menu: Administration > Hardware Drivers and enable that ATI driver and reboot again. (Thanks Nicholas)”

     i did everything step by step and now, after restart i don’t have any enable driver, what should i do now?

     i have laptop hp compaq nc6000 with graphic ATI Radeon 9550 Series

     please help

132. Thank you for the answer, but in the Hardware Driver manager, I can only see the driver for my wireless card !
     If I start envyng on tty1, I can see that I have “8.543-0ubuntu4.1” installed, is it correct or do I need to change something in my xorg.conf ?

133. Dreamkey i don’t know if i did it right, but after i installed envyng, i had to change my system:/ cause it didn’t worked

134. Hello,
     it’s works fine now, here is what I have do :
     1. Search in “fglrx” Synaptic package manager and desinstall everything you find and reboot
     2. download the patch at http://www.wikiupload.com/download_page.php?id=184007 and extract it (password : ubuntu)
     3. download and extract the file of the ati package : ./ati-driver-installer-9-3-x86.x86_64.run –extract atidriver
     4. copy FGLRX-2.6.29-9.2-5.diff inside the atidriver folder
     5. apply the patch : cd atidriver && patch -p1 < FGLRX-2.6.29-9.2-5.diff
     6. install it : sudo ./ati-installer.sh 8.593 –install
     Reboot and enjoy !

135. Oh YES !! it works perfect.
     With your fix, we can work smooth.
     We use Ubuntu for my Advertising Office, and the black lines was a real pain in our eyes.

     Thank you !!

136. Bad new… this solution not work at ubuntu karmic koala 🙁

     now what ?? say good bye to ubuntu ?

137. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah…first..;)
     Karmic doesn’t need the fix(ATI HD3600)!….YaY
     You only need to detect and download the ATI hardware driver and edit your config.org file if your monitor doesn’t supports the maximum resolution.
     So sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet…..
     But thanks to Tyler helping us run Jaunty smoothly.

     It’s time for Karmic now!
     ~Peace ya’ll and hope that it works for ya’ll….

138. Has anyone tried this on karmic?(kuro as far as i know hd3x series don’t have this problem)i’ve downloaded karmic and it looks so sweet; i want to use it on my x1250 system: )i’m going to try it this weekend maybe it works.

139. i’ve tried this trick on karmic…. unfortunately… i cannot activated my driver… my gnome grub not normally running.. anyone??? any advice again??

140. mahiralkhoir: can you try it with grub 1? becouse karmic uses grub 2.

141. Catalyst 9.3 supports kernels up to 2.6.28. There is a patch for 2.6.29 a few posts above mine. I do not know if there is going to be a patch for 2.6.30 and above. BTW, karmic ships out with 2.6.31

142. Didn’t work at all in my case. Ubuntu signales a screeninit failed after the first restart. any suggestions?

143. right now i’m resizing my hdd, as soon as it’s finished i’m going to install karmic.i hope it works cause wih open source drivers enabled videos have tearing.Is there anybody has ati hd4650? if this tutorial fails i am thinking getting one.

144. great article. thanks! I just upgraded to Karmic and have an X800 that was actually working pretty good under Jaunty

145. what does the step 5. command mean from the post “Dreamkey
     10/27/2009”? i dont now how i should apply the patch?
     i have tried also the fix by tylor but i get the error-message in the terminal > Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0″.
     🙁 someone a idea?

146. @vikis : well this work for dreamkey (under jaunty)

     What is has done is :
     1)Follow the fix in this page
     2)Patch the catalyst driver

     But in karmic koala the kernel is 2.6.31 : so
     In fact you will also need to downgrade your kernel ( and it is not really difficult but i don’t if it possible in karmic, because it a big gap betwean 29 and 31, and in ubuntu itself).

     So we need an other patch.

     And i advise you to tell ATI that because you have buy there device (shit) they need to support these device. ( or say bye bye to ati gcu ): Well, you ask them : you give the source to the community or you continu your support of our card !

     ( or you create other illegal patch )

     I have an other bad solution : you install the last open driver , that support opengl ( a little ). You can do this easily with ubuntu tweak. http://ubuntu-tweak.com/

147. Pingback: Kogemused vaba tarkvaraga – AMD/ATI kiusab « .mrt memo

148. Hi,

     I’m having exactly the same problem as didem, is there a solution for this?

     Thanks,

     Stuart.

149. Sorry, the problem is this.

     xorg-driver-fglrx: Depends: lib32gcc1 but it is not going to be installed
     Depends: libc6-i386 but it is not going to be installed

     which when trying to install the dependencies leads to this.

     lib32gcc1: Depends: gcc-4.3-base (= 4.3.2-1ubuntu12) but 4.3.3-5ubuntu4 is to be installed
     libc6-i386: Depends: libc6 (= 2.8~20080505-0ubuntu9) but 2.9-4ubuntu6.1 is to be installed

     Thank you,

     Stuart.

150. I would strongly advise not to run these instructions. Failed to work on my laptop running ati 9700. try these instructions for some tips: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

151. Now we need to think up something for uBuntu 9.10. Have somebody some idea how to do that. 😉

152. That would be great indeed!
     As it is, moving from 8.10 to 9.10 as I just did feels more like downgrading than upgrading (graphics are blurry, and everything is much slower!)

     Think I will watch this space for a couple of weeks, and if nothing comes up, I might end up going back to windows 🙁

153. Alrighty, I will look at getting a new tutorial up soon, I’ve got a bit going on this week so I will try for next week. I’ll probably put a copy up on the Ubuntu Forums too. Thanks for all the help I got in the early stages of this tutorial! 😀

154. .purpendicular how i choose grub 2??
     the monitor is blank.. nothing grub or else..
     when i am using live cd to recover… it doesnt works…
     finally i am uninstall ati driver.. and use basic resolution…

     i think’s i must using jaunty again.. until the problem radeon on carmic solved..

155. mahiralkhoir: i don’t know:)anyway i think grub has nothing to do with ati driver, all we can do is wait for a patch for the new kernel or buy a new graphic card or a laptop:)

156. purpendicular : wait for the patch… maybe, but i want to find another way… because that is art of linux… 😀

157. i will wait for the patch because video playback is choppy with open source drivers and open source drivers don’t support vsync.

158. anyone know if these instructions work with Ubuntu 9.10(Karmic)

159. The instructions posted in this article do not work in Ubuntu Karmic, however I am working on getting a new tutorial for Karmic up some time next week.

     (Refer to the latest post on this site)

160. It worked for me!!!
     thx a lot man!!

161. Thanks for tutorial

     I tried it on 9.10

     It broke my ubuntu, now I reboot into console. is there any way i can unlock the packeges and upgrade them to 9.10 again from console?

     regards
     svenson

162. hello! i wanted to use this guide, but it does not work. why? because after reboot the system is fucked.

     first:

     when trying to install catalyst 9.3 several dependencies cannot be resolved: build-essential, gcc, fakeroot, etc.

     second:

     the patch provided by dreamkey does not work. why? i dont know, because the instructions are so bad! even dreamkey did not provide proper instructions, or did he? what file should i call to start the patch progress?

     third:

     the guide says install fglrx, dreamkey says uninstall all fglrx. now what is correct???

     actually i got the same problems as stuart.

     i recommend you to write a guide step by step and formulate your thoughts and actions properly so that everyone can do it, otherwise its just useless.

163. there also seems to be a problem with the relative directories of the patch by dreamkey. is the patch to be used in disregard of this guid OR in combination with it? totally unclear.

164. seems like the guide does not work for 64bit driver / os, because of the 32bit libraries?

165. Robert,

     Don’t be ridiculous. This guy is helping out of the goodness of his heart. If you have absolutely no idea what you are doing when you use his guide, then you have no right to bitch when it doesn’t work for you. Instead of cutting someone up because their help confused you, show them a little more respect because of the effort they put in. Calling his guide “just useless” only shows your maturity.

166. dear shaun, i know what i was doing, as i was following the guide, but it just did not work, because of missing and badly verbalized instructions? it should not be so hard to restructure this guide properly, if someone knows what to do.

     i dont care if linux dies, i just reinstall it, but i wish it would work, if its possible. others here had problems too and its not due to the nature of the difficulty of this guide, but rather to the way it is written, dreamkey specifically. tylor great work anyway, you know it.

     so im acting out of goodness of the heart, too, for the people, that dont know much about linux.

     anyway, shaun, how about answering my questions in order to figure out the general problem, for example libs or the driver-patch?

     ps: i love you all, you are great. peace all over the world.

167. Pingback: BavYeti » Blog Archive » ATI Radeon X1950 unter Ubuntu

168. @robert

     Got an idea : You must be so intelligent, that you only understant this tutorial in binary langage ?

     It doesn’t work with karmic now, it works on jaunty with a patch.

169. @robert moreover , don’t fuck the free and open community : i think you lost something out of your mind :

     THE PROBLEM IS THAT ATI DOESN’T SUPPORT 95% of their cards under linux :

     SO WHAT THE F* UP ?

     YOU BOUGHT THEIR SHIT, OK, AND THEY DIDN’T WANT TO CONTINU THEIR JOB, SO GO TO THEIR ATI’s Driver Feedback Program, and be very gentle , to their effort with you money.

     https://support.ati.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=894&surveyID=508&type=web

170. Hi. Nothng worked for me AI 9600 M10 – RV 350, i had a EE no devices found systematically.

     What i did was simply to install the ATI 9.3 drivers after the downgrade to Xorg 7.4. The installation takes place on VESA Xserver device, after the reboot.

     Now i have a jaunty (snif, karmic is not compatible due to kernel problems) with ati drivers ! open gl is fast (cairo-dock, compiz are greeting me :p )

171. everything very well, only I do not understand that:In gedit, simply select the word “jaunty” anywhere in the file and click on “Replace” on the tool bar. When the dialogue box comes up, type “intrepid” into the box labeled “Replace With:” and click “Find” then “Replace All” ????

172. Hi, if you want to fix the “Xlib: extension “Generic Event Extension” missing on display “:0.0″” issue, just go to synaptic and search for libxext6, go to Package>”Force Version” and force the intrepid one, after that just “Apply”.
     Hope it works!

173. i’d just like to warn anyone reading this that its giong to brick your x-server if you’re running 9.10.
     if (like me) you end up witha spinning disk + terminal.
     follow the steps backwards:
     apt-get update (to get rid of the intrepid repositories)

     sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg
     –
     sudo apt-get remove libdrm2=2.3.1-0build1 xorg-driver-fglrx
     –
     sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core ubuntu-desktop

     can’t wait for the karmic tutorial!

174. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make that tutorial. I hope one will be found soon though!

175. I JUST WANTED TO SAY THANK YOU VERY MUCH I COULD NOT GET UBUNTU TO WORK ON MY LAPTOP BECAUSE ATI BUT THANKS TO THIS PAGE IT WORKS CCSM WORKS OMFG IT WORKS THANK YOU I LOVE UBUNTU

176. Many thanks Tyler – this worked fine for me except for losing shutdown and restart options in my menu as reported by a couple of others. I don’t mind doing a bit of research to solve the problem, and I will post my findings.

     Please don’t be disheartened by the rude idiots who threw a baby tantrum when things didn’t go smoothly for them. Anybody who uses the Linux command line does it at their own risk, and computers just love screwing things up for over-confident incompetents. And I have been one of those many many times!

177. Hello thanks a lot again for this cool tutorial and it was great if you post an karmic tutorial )))

178. Hello again.
     can I use “hardy” instead “jaunty” in /etc/apt/sources.list
     to get x.org 7.3 ? for my real old firepro_8.583_linux_77161 driver and FireGl T2-128 card.
     If there any major changes if I do that ?
     Thanks again.

179. hmm, i only now found this:
     The instructions posted in this article do not work in Ubuntu Karmic, however I am working on getting a new tutorial for Karmic up some time next week.

     (Refer to the latest post on this site)

     hmm, using your instructions “broke” my desktop. is there a way to get my desktop GUI back, or should i just reinstall ubu? are you trying to get karmic to work with this driver still, or is that a dead project now?

180. I hope you do tut for karmic and good look ! please add ¨hardy”if it possible !!!

181. Again, I say: There isn’t a Karmic tutorial coming from me. I don’t have the time and hardware anymore.

182. I was using Debian 5.0 (Lenny) on my thinkpad T60 (with ATI X1400) and just upgraded to 9.10. Everything works great, but there is no 3D acceleration. I am getting 4k+ fps in glxgears using the default driver in karmic, but my video playback is terrible.

     I think I have to downgrade to 9.04 🙁 Too bad ATI won’t support X1300/X1400 on Karmic. Boo!

183. So please give us the status of 10.04! thank you this guide!

184. Thank you so much for this article. I’ve been a year disappointed with Ubuntu because my graphic card didn’t work. But now, my pc works perfectly.

     Thanks again!

185. Pingback: Howto: Fix Ubuntu 9.04 ATI Driver Issues « Friendly Tech Ninja

186. Hi Tyler, this looks real promising! I’ve been looking for this kind of fix for a while now. There are things I love about 9.04, but the graphics just killed me, now there’s hope!

     One problem. I’m not sure exactly which packages I’m supposed to lock! I want to get it right, so would you mind expanding on that instruction?

187. You will lock anything that starts with xserver-xorg and fglrx.

     Also lock xorg-driver-fglrx, libdrm2, gnome-session, and fast-user-switch-applet.

188. Thanks! I’ll try that tonight then!

     Another quick one- if I change my sources list to intrepid, does that mean all my repositries from then on will be for intrepid, rather than jaunty? Would it be a good idea to change the sources list to jaunty once this has been completed?

189. The last steps switch it back to jaunty. That’s why you copy the sources list before the downgrade.

190. Again, thank you for replying so soon to my messages.

     Apologies, looks like I ran into a problem. I ran through the process and restarted, but unfortunately I don’t get a display anymore, just the command line.

     I think I might know where the problem was. When I got to this step: “Once the repositories are updated, make sure all ATI drivers are uninstalled.”, I wasn’t very sure of what to do. I went to synaptic package manager, searched for ATI, and uninstalled the ATI display driver. I’m not sure if this is correct. Any ideas?

191. If you remove everything this tutorial covers, and then make sure it gets installed back, then everything “should” be perfectly fine.

192. I am sorry to hear that your fix will not work for karmic(ubuntu 9.1) an a radeon x1900 card. Have you heard of any successes in that area which I might investigate-googling hasnt been fruitful for me.

193. Thank you Tyler, thanks to you I have finally set up hardware acceleration on linux after trying (from time to time of course :P) for 3 years to do it :]

194. Thank you for the tutorial! It seems to work, with one exception. I am sort of a noob, and after having gone through the steps listed above I can no longer enable s-video. Anyone with a suggestion on how to solve this?

195. Help with the open source ATI legacy drivers on Ubuntu 9.10:
     https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

     Follow that guide to the point where it links to “KMS with a Radeon card” then follow the link to here:
     https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/KernelModeSetting
     and follow the instructions in the section KMS with a radeon card.

     This worked perfectly for me on my ATI Radeon Xpress 200M.

196. The works in this post is great. wish to know more about its working processes. Thanks for the wonderful post…..

     1. I have not had the time in the past to maintain this article, however I might be able to update it for Natty some time during the next couple of months.

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