Ubuntu Multimedia :: XOrg (Opensource) Drivers For ATI Radeon Cards?

For those of us who were stung last year by ATI's decision to drop support for <= R500 series cards from their closed source, or proprietary driver (known as the FGLRX driver), we are now forced to use the opensource ATI XORG driver. This is not as bad as it sounds, as in doing so, ATI has released a lot of the hardware specs on these older cards and the opensource driver has improved dramatically in the last year as a result.

Ubuntu includes both the ATI and the FGLRX driver install capacities in recent releases (since Intrepid(?)). If one can install the FGLRX driver, you should be able to do this by choosing System>Administration>Hardware Drivers and choosing to activate the ATI drivers; or you can manually install them using this guide: [URL]

However, if you have a card that is or below the R500 series (i.e. not R600+) DO NOT install the FGLRX drivers - you will break your X server (video display). If you don't know what series chipset you have, try the following:

Code:
$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 PCI Express Root Port (rev 0c)

[Code]....

If you're like me and need a production machine, but just want updated drivers, try this link: [URL]

To add the PPA (Guide): [URL]

These are fairly easy to remove (as described on the site); just remove the PPA from your Software Sources and downgrade the drivers.