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Finally at home with Ubuntu 9.10 and ATI Radeon with 3D work!

I had heard much talk that the proprietary driver of ATI graphics cards usually give problem on Linux, but when using nVidia, I never really knew the job was to seek a solution for that.

I am a recent user of a Radeon HD 4650 (baseboard and cheap, I recommend for anyone who is not a super-ultra-mega-buff games!). Everything was working fine when suddenly - okay, not so suddenly, just to give a dramatic air to the scene - stopped working, everything after installing Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala. The proprietary video driver from ATI is comprised of shares in the operating system kernel, x.org parties to the graphics system, and software configuration. As is quite dependent on the core system, a version change can make it stop working - maybe a problem in programming, do not know.

Looking at various places, with several different keywords for several days - remember I'm new to ATI cards - take me long to find some information that might help. Salvation came when I found on Ubuntu forum someone referencing the group xorg-edgers who, by their own admission, has "packages For those who think development versions, experimental and unstable are for old ladies."

All you have there is experimental, then the changes are at your own risk! What they offer is some information about the updates that are in your domain, plus a repository with the files needed to update the drivers (and other libraries) on your system to make it use the latest versions in development.

For those who have cards with chips in the family RV and RV-6xx, 7xx, the news showed what was needed:

1. Install the new kernel:

  New in Karmic == == 

  R6xx/r7xx Radeon 3D support.  Install the 2.6.32-rc5
     kernel or newer from the Mainline Kernel PPA. 

I installed the kernel 2.6.32 RC7 here (linux-headers and linux-image for your platform).

2. Add the xorg-edgers PPA, which provides new drivers to the software channels (images with a few steps):

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3. Upgrade the system, for example, using these commands in Terminal:

  sudo aptitude update & & sudo aptitude upgrade 

4. Change the file / etc/X11/xorg.conf in Section "Device", the value of "Driver" to "ati". If not, use this one:

  # File / etc/X11/xorg.conf
     Section "Screen"
         Identifier "Default Screen"
         DefaultDepth 24
     EndSection
     Section "Module"
         Load "glx"
     EndSection
     Section "Device"
         Identifier "Default Device"
         Driver "ati"
     EndSection 

5. Save everything, close and restart. Do not forget to choose the new kernel at startup (if applicable).

6. If everything is right, you'll be able to activate the visual effects in System / Preferences / Appearance / Visual Effects.

And a cheer to the community FLOSS ! And another driver for free!

PS: I'm not sure why, but glxinfo says "OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer, instead of showing something by indicating it is being hardware, but is working.

² PS: If anyone needs, comments!