Ubuntu

ATI graphics dramas

Asked by Merlin

Hi,
   I am not a complete newbie but am probably at the stage of being able to do more bad than good.I have just returned to using Ubuntu as the first effort was unfruitful but i am determined this time to get things fixed rather than run back to Bill.
Due to some shaky graphics after a Heron network install,I downloaded manually from the AMD site the ati-driver-installer-8-4-x86.x86_64.run package for my ATI Radeon 9550 256MB video card.I installed this as per the sites instructions and things went from bad to worse.
    I then experimented a bit and got myself into another situation similar to the one that put me on my bike to Redmond last time,no VDU image (incidentally the VDU is a LG 710s). I refused to give up (I am now 2 days of work into a mess) and eventually found that the GNOME failsafe session parameter would at least get me a screen to wreak more havoc with.
   I then was lucky enough to go to this page http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Hardy_Installation_Guide ,which was very good indeed and it allowed me to obtain much better results (but how you guys develop such encyclopedic knowledge of a very complicated subject is beyond me,my IQ is 147 and i am helpless,so you guys must be off the Richter scale; though logic is the way to get the wrong answer with 100% confidence in it) however certain screen savers lock the whole machine requiring reset as even the start button wont shutdown and was wondering if I SHOULD of removed the previous ATI installation before I used the type 1 method ( see hyperlink at top of paragraph; if you remember, i just ran the installer with none of the amendments of method 2 of the aforementioned hyper link and then used method 1 to fix what I had decimated,probably through a combination of enthusiasm, ignorance and haste, a bad combination) and if so How do i remove it? As the 2 are probably the same drivers,perhaps the hung screen saver applications are bugs? I don't know.
  Also if I am going to get the hang of real computing I am going to need a little help as I am completely self taught and MS crippled.I am not "completely" stupid, so any advice on which things to acquaint myself with as mandatory skills would be a great help. I am at present learning a lot just getting the bloody thing working
but must admit,I am out of my league and it seems over whelming at times. I have also decided that reading the Linux file system. PDF and another I found on Bash Scripting might be a good place to start,but I don't want to balance the books but learn how to really employ the machine to its true limits.
   Thank you for any input,be gentle

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Merlin (margaretellenstone) said : 		#1

It has also terminated my MythTV instance which freezes solid just like the screensavers in unmovable locked image requiring cold reboot makes the BSOD look like fun.

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Merlin (margaretellenstone) said : 		#2

The display became so poor I logged into failsafe GNOME and downloaded the 8.04 LTS image burnt an error free install disk and the fresh install had none of the original issues that caused me to toy with the drivers to start with.The problematic instance was a network install over gutsy which failed to erase several archaic libraries which must of been why envyNG crashed.
The fresh install of LTS had none of these errors and fired well from the blocks.I would advise though using the envyNG installer before you install any other major display orientated applications eg. mythTV as display is an imperative to just about everything else.This is a very smick operating system for nix,at least now I callused my backside for 3 days fixing things.now to get a handle on shellscripting so i can give a bit back in the future,then C,then C++. A big thanks to everybody concerned,this is a fine bridge between M$ crippledom and impoverishment to real computing.

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Merlin (margaretellenstone) said : 		#3

No!,
this install lasted about 2 hours then of it own accord just went blank,requiring a power off cold restart and this was on a floorless OS install.
Therefore unless you are Babbage or Von Neumann himself I would be very cautious with ATI drivers going so far as to say unless you are extremely confident as an expert in the field,DO NOT change from the automatically installed Linux supported options until the suicides stop further on in the releases lifecycle as I have installed them by the book,by envyNG,by apt-get by synaptic,apt-build world over and over and over again and not once got a decent result except when I just accepted the defaults at first boot.So Scito Caveat.Proceed at your peril,I am not paranoid it is just Bill has paid everyone to get me.