Removal and installation is really straight forward and there is only a few extra steps. I keep my drivers in separate folders for each version. All commands are displayed as if you were in the working folder for that driver and ONLY that driver version.

Generate the fglrx/catalyst drivers for your distribution
Supported distro’s found here.
sh ati-driver-installer-* --buildpkg Distribution/codename

Backup your xorg.conf (just in case, re-configuring xorg sucks!) and remove the previous fglrx drivers
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak
sudo apt-get purge xorg-driver-fglrx fglrx-kernel-source fglrx-modaliases fglrx-amdcccle
# if /etc/ati still exists, remove it!
sudo rm -rf /etc/ati/

Now reboot and when restarting do not boot into the GUI. Xorg will be looking for your fglrx driver and it is now obviously gone, so you will either lock-up or it may recover nicely and allow you to enter into a low graphics mode. Either way, boot into a terminal window. On Ubuntu you can enter the recovery console.

Now from terminal install the new fglrx/catalyst driver
sudo dpkg -i xorg-driver-fglrx_*.deb fglrx-kernel-source_*.deb fglrx-amdcccle_*.deb

Now reboot from terminal and enter the GUI. You will have to reconfigure any settings you made in the previous Catalyst driver. fglrx/catalyst brightness, contrast, gamma howto.

If you happen to have any issues booting back into the GUI. Go back to the terminal and remove your previous xorg.conf. and follow these instructions for generating a new one.

A more detailed walk-through can always be found at http://wiki.cchtml.com/

In my previous post I went over setting and making these adjustments. The previous methods for Contrast and Brightness remain. However for gamma, the only way and previously existing method is now using fglrx_xgamma.

In terminal;

fglrx_xgamma -c 0 -gamma .85

This setting will be immediately applied and also after restarting.

I downloaded the official driver from ATI’s website. 9.4 catalyst.

I followed the instructions to install the drivers manually from the link below line for line;
When I built the packages I had the previous driver still installed from envyng. I also left compiz running with all my desktop effects enabled. I’m not sure how relevant that is, but it is what I did.

This is really not for the faint of heart! Be cautious and patient, READ CAREFULLY and follow the instructions word for word! If you mess this up, ubuntu will more than likely not be bootable into the GUI after. If something is wrong, ubuntu will freeze at boot probably with some messed up crap on the screen. You will have to remove the fglrx packages from the recovery terminal. (which happened to me once already).
http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Jaunty_Installation_Guide#Installing_the_drivers_manually

After installation was complete, I did not reboot immediately.
I backed up first /etc/ati/amdpcsdb and then removed it from that directory.
Then I rebooted…

After reboot, i DID NOT do aticonfig --initial OR aticonfig --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf. And I don’t plan on it.

My xorg.conf is a mess at the moment and not complete, but I attached it anyway since the video card driver settings I am using are there and are complete. But I’ve read that without running aticonfig --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf, the ati driver doesn’t read the xorg.conf settings. Not sure one way or the other right now honestly. But I’m not running it.

For testing, I opened firefox which had 12 tabs, system monitor, nautilus, terminal with transparency, netbeans 6.7 beta and evolution. I also ran glxgears and I am seeing 500-600 FPS more! glxgears is now up to 1500-1600 on HD3400 Series.

I booted with Xorg at 65mb, after running these applications and glxgears. Also maximizing and minimizing each window repeatedly since this clearly showed the leak the most, Xorg is freeing up memory and garbage collecting quite well! Xorg is now at 76-77mb. Open is firefox with 5 tabs and system monitor. Normally before, Xorg would be at 130-170mb at least after this. Especially after minimize and maximize so many times. So at this point, an 11-12mb increase after all that with windows still open is VERY acceptable compared to before.

I posted this info on launchpad a couple days ago.

Anyway, Good luck!

Launchpad Link for this bug;
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/353800/

For those who would prefer to compile xorg;
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/26424345/107_fedora_dont_backfill_bg_none.patch

PPA is available here;
https://edge.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/xserver-no-backfill

Launchpad link for this bug;
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/351186

I could not find anywhere on google a single search result except for setting gamma, so I post this here.

To change brightness and contrast you do this through aticonfig. These settings are saved as you change them and are irreversible without deleting /etc/ati/amdpcsdb first. I recommend making small increments and make sure your syntax is correct.

First you need to determine what monitor(s) types are connected. With aticonfig in terminal try aticonfig --query-monitor. If you get the error it is not supported when RandR is enabled. You can then try xrandr. This will return the screen # and types. From xrandr you should be able to pick out what display type you need for aticonfig, the naming will be different.

aticonfig requires the following display type options in the string crt1, lvds, tv, cv, tmds1, crt2, tmds2, tmds2i, dfp3, dfp4, dfp5, dfp6. So you can try one of these until you get the right one. Querying incorrect display type does no harm. Typically, lvds is going to be your LCD.

To determine the contrast and brightness you are using type the following below in a terminal, lvds is the display type and in the output, value is the current setting;

Contrast
aticonfig --query-dispattrib=lvds,contrast
Which outputs for me:
contrast attribute information of monitor lvds :
default:100, value:85, min:0, max:200, step:1

Brightness
aticonfig --query-dispattrib=lvds,brightness
Which outputs for me:
brightness attribute information of monitor lvds :
default:0, value:-3, min:-100, max:100, step:1

Notice how brightness is min value of -100 and max 100 while contrast is a min value of 0 and max 200. So be careful.

To set these, be very careful of typos or accidentally setting a null value. Your screen could very easily go black:
aticonfig --set-dispattrib=lvds,contrast:100
Where 100 is the contrast value you are setting. And the same goes for brightness:
aticonfig --set-dispattrib=lvds,brightness:0

UPDATE: Use fglrx_xgamma for setting gamma. Xorg.conf gamma no longer works in fglrx versions 9.5 and later.

Gamma is not supported anywhere I can see in the man for aticonfig. So for gamma you can see the current setting through xserver by typing xgamma. It should return values for red, blue and green.

xgamma supports decimal values like 0.85 or 1.0. 1.0 being default. If you want to change the gamma for all 3, type xgamma -gamma 0.85 or whatever value you want. If you want to change individual colors, you have to do it one by one. Replace -gamma with -rgamma, -ggamma or -bgamma. Red, green, blue respectively.

The thing about xgamma, these settings are only stored and saved for your current user/boot session. To make these settings permanent, you will need to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. If your xorg.conf is not setup, you should get started reading here.

So open xorg.conf as sudo in your text editor of choice. For gnome users, one of my fav commands is gksu gedit /ect/X11/xorg.conf &disown.

Next goto Section "Monitor". Inside this section simply add your gamma setting with, Gamma 0.85 0.85 0.85 (red, blue, green). Or you can put a single value for all 3. Save and exit.

That’s it, pretty straight forward I hope.

The reason I am posting this is because it took me several hours to figure this out. I could not find in one place an organized concise approach. I’d imagine the experts already know this info but for the new Linux users, I can see this being helpful and also as a reference for me in the future

This does not fix the current memory leak in Xorg or the slow sluggishness of compiz when minimizing, maximizing or resizing. Sadly, I’m experiencing both of these issues on Jaunty with the ATI Driver, I have not tried the open source ATI Driver yet.

I went through many installations and removals of the ati driver during this process. I will only explain how and what I did to actually get the driver working with direct rendering enabled.

Let’s begin:

You can see if you have direct rendering working by typing:

glxinfo | grep direct

If you get “direct rendering: Yes” you do not need to do this and your drivers and card are configured correctly. Otherwise, if it says no and possibly one of two messages after the “no”. Your xorg and driver settings are not configured correctly.

After a complete failure of the drivers off ATI’s website not working, even after compiling the .deb packages and installing everything that was necessary, my Linux installation no longer booted in the GUI.

The first thing I did was boot into recovery and remove ALL FGLRX packages from my installation. If you get permission denied for any commands, use sudo. You can see what packages are installed by typing this:

dpkg -l | grep fglrx

If any of the following packages are installed they will need removed:
xorg-driver-fglrx, fglrx-kernel-source, fglrx-modaliases, fglrx-amdcccle

You can remove these with the following command, leave out any packages that are not installed;

apt-get purge xorg-driver-fglrx fglrx-kernel-source fglrx-modaliases fglrx-amdcccle

Purge ensures that all files and directories created by the packages are removed. After successful purge I typed reboot. I was back in the GUI now in an 800×600 screen, which was great since I could not boot into the GUI before! This also told me that all previous flgrx drivers were definitely gone =)

After I rebooted I started envyng.

envyng -t

This takes us to the text based version of the installer. If you do not have envyng, I highly recommend it, download it via;

sudo apt-get install envyng-core

After you go through the text based wizard, it will ask you to reboot. Do that. You should come back to your login with your native screen resolution. Envyng never failed me through about 6-7 manual package removals and re-installing again everytime.

You can check if your drivers are working and installed correctly by typing the following “fglrxinfo”, you should see something like this:

display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series
OpenGL version string: 2.1.8575

Next we will update xorg.conf. This creates a new xorg.conf and backups your old.

aticonfig --initial -f

To update your xorg.cong, type;

sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf

If you don’t have vim, you can use vi instead. This is my xorg.conf file after researching and looking at other Linux users xorg.conf files for my series card.

Section "ServerLayout"

#  InputDevice   "Synaptics Touchpad"
	Identifier     "Default Layout"
	Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0" 0 0
	InputDevice    "Generic Keyboard"
	InputDevice    "Configured Mouse"
	Option	    "AIGLX" "on"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"

#	Disable	"dri2"
	Load  "glx"
	Load  "dri"
#Load  "synaptics"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Generic Keyboard"
	Driver      "kbd"
	Option	    "CoreKeyboard"
	Option	    "XkbRules" "xorg"
	Option	    "XkbModel" "pc105"
	Option	    "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

  # Option "CorePointer"
  # Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
  # Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
  # Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
  # Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
	Identifier  "Configured Mouse"
	Driver      "mouse"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
	Gamma        0.85
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	Option	    "DynamicClocks" "on"
	Option	    "mtrr" "on"
	Option	    "DesktopSetup" "Single"
	Option	    "ScreenOverlap" "0"
	Option	    "VideoOverlay" "on"
	Option	    "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
	Option	    "Stereo" "off"
	Option	    "StereoSyncEnable" "1"
	Option	    "FSAAEnable" "no"
	Option	    "FSAAScale" "1"
	Option	    "FSAADisableGamma" "no"
	Option	    "FSAACustomizeMSPos" "no"
	Option	    "UseFastTLS" "0"
	Option	    "BlockSignalsOnLock" "on"
	Option	    "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"
	Option	    "AccelMethod" "XAA"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]-0"
	Device     "Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series"
	Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]-0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"

  #Group "Video"
	Mode         0666
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
	Option	    "RENDER" "Enable"
	Option	    "DAMAGE" "Enable"
	Option	    "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

The trick in this file that got my direct rendering enabled was setting the name of my actual video card under Section “Device” and Section “Screen”. To get the name of your video card as linux sees it, type the following;

lspci | grep VGA

Once you have updated your xorg.conf file, these settings are NOT actually set at this point. Even after a reboot! You must now type following to enable these settings.

sudo aticonfig --input=/etc/X11/xorg.conf

You should see a message that it was updated. Now reboot again and type the following to see if your direct rendering is enabled.

glxinfo | grep direct

You should get “direct rendering: Yes”