ubuntu gutsy, ati and compiz

well, I’ll post the same thing but this time, but since many people in other countries also want to find the solution to the problem, I’ll do it in another language.
First of all, since I’m a native portuguese speaker, I’ll ask that you to be kind on my poor english.

My computer is a:
Athlon 64 2800+ 1.8GHz
1GB DDR400
HD SAMSUNG SATA 80GB
Mobo Asus K8S-MX
Video Card ATI RADEON 9600PRO

$ uname -a
Linux tivoli 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Tue Feb 12 07:42:25 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

I did all the stuff below on a fresh ubuntu install, I just did try to install the drivers from the restricted drivers manager before. No luck at all.
Let’s go to the installation steps. (Backup your xorg.conf, you know, safety first xD)
I’ll suppose you don’t have xgl or fglrx installed, if you do, remove them first.
$ sudo apt-get remove xserver-xgl xserver-xorg-fglrx

Turn Composite and AIGLX on in /etc/X11/xorg.conf by adding the following lines at the end of the file.

Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “true”
EndSection
Section “ServerFlags”
Option “AIGLX” “true”
EndSection

Disable the fglrx module by editing the file /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-commom. Find the line that corresponds to DISABLED_MODULES=”" and change it to DISABLED_MODULES=”fglrx”.
Make sure you have the multiverse and universe repositories being used. You can change it directly in the /etc/apt/sources.list file uncommenting the lines that have this repos.
All repositories ok, run
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install module-assistant build-essential fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++5 linux-headers-generic-$(uname-r)

Download the driver and, in the folder you have it, run
$ sudo bash ati-driver-installer-8.42.3-x86.x86_64.run –buildpkg Ubuntu/gutsy

This should generate the .deb packages that are necessary for the driver installation. If you get an error, you should fix it before proceeding.
After that, install the packages
$ sudo dpkg -i xorg-driver-fglrx_8.42.3-1*.deb fglrx-kernel-source_8.42.3-1*.deb fglrx-amdcccle_8.42.3-1*.deb

Eventually you may get an unresolved dependency, that you’ll take off using:
$ sudo apt-get -f install

Remove all previous fglrx packages in order to avoid conflicts
$ sudo rm /usr/src/fglrx-kernel*.deb

Compile the module
$ sudo module-assistant prepare
$ sudo module-assistant update
$ sudo module-assistant build fglrx -f
$ sudo module-assistant install fglrx -f
$ sudo depmod -a

In case any changes have been made to the fglrx module, the following step may be necessary, run it if you are in doubt:
$ sudo mkdir /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/volatile
$ sudo ln -sf /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/misc/fglrx.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/volatile/fglrx.ko

Enter the following commands to change the xorg.conf:
$ sudo aticonfig –initial – f
$ sudo aticonfig –overlay-type=Xv

After that, you have two ways of loading the module. The first one is rebooting and let the OS does it’s job. The other one, which I myself prefer, is to do it by yourself.
Call a tty (Ctrl+Alt+F1 for example). Log in and run the following commands.

$ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
Stops the gdm

$ sudo rmmod radeon
$ sudo rmmod drm
Removes the former video driver module and DRM

$ sudo modprobe -v fglrx
$ sudo depmod -a
Loads the video driver module and generates the dependencies list of all modules.

Now, let’s call gdm again
$ sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

Test and see if it is ok.

gallois@tivoli:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI RADEON 9600 Series
OpenGL version string: 2.0.6958 Release
gallois@tivoli:~$ glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes
gallois@tivoli:~$ glxgears
17141 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3428.177 FPS
18477 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3694.979 FPS
18448 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3689.492 FPS
18491 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3698.152 FPS
18436 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3687.086 FPS

gallois@tivoli:~$

This shows you that you are getting proper 3D acceleration. A detail that you might observe is that if you go to System > Administration > Restricted Drivers Manager you see that the fglrx driver is not installed, but in use. By so, it means that you’re using a driver that is different from the one that is provided by their repositories. If you get any MESA DRI message at the line “OpenGL renderer string:” instead of the model of your card, something went wrong. You should start by taking a look at the xorg loading log at /var/log/Xorg.0.log (try running ‘$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | egrep \(EE\)’ to show you where are the errors) and the outpu of ‘$ dmesg’to have an idea of where you are stuck.
Now you should just set up compiz, which is much easier than what you have already done.
The following command will start it in the current session
$ SKIP_CHECKS=yes compiz

To turn it on via System > Preferences > Appearance > Visual Effects, run
$ mkdir -p ~/.config/compiz && echo SKIP_CHECKS=yes >> ~/.config/compiz/compiz-manager.

I took the information on how to set up compiz from this site, and used many of its installation steps as a base to this guide, however, I know them almost by heart, since I do it a lot. My problem, as it seems, was solved by installing the 8.42 version of the driver, the others just didn’t work at all. Since this one was the first to have AIGLX support (I shall warn you, it SUX) I tried it out, all for good.

That’s all for now, any question, comments, flame, messages, love letters are welcome =]

[update] sometimes, X complains about not finding the libGL.so.1 or something like that. run:

$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2 /usr/lib/libGL.so.1

[/update]All the best.