Kubuntu Lucid Lynx after upgrade gfx driver problems

First of all, what were my problems? In short, applications asked for the fglrx drivers, but when I try to install them, the installation failed with a nice WARNING message. The problem was quite the same as found in this link: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/565407.

Please note that this is a solution for people with ATI products, NOT nvidia products. The solution might work the same, but in steps 1 and 2 you need to find the corresponding drivers for nvidia.

NOTE: USE THIS GUIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK! of course =).

How to solve it?

We’ll need a terminal window. If you’re stuck outside kubuntu, in a wizard that first states that you miss about 3 things, of which one is an open source driver, press OK, and try to start kubuntu in safe mode. Which is the first option in the wizard. You may need to repeat this a few times (it only worked with me after 2 tries) till you get in the command line login screen. Otherwise just open Konsole.

1. I tried a few of the work arounds that I found there, but the only one working was #10, in short: delete the ATI folder located at /usr/share/ati. You must do this in the terminal. For people who don’t know the commands:
                  First navigate to /usr/share/ by using cd: $ cd /usr/share/
                  Then delete the ati folder using: $ sudo rm -r ati
2. If you were excluded from the graphical interface, you might want it back using the open source drivers. In the terminal type:
                  $ sudo apt-get install fglrx
   to install the open source ATI drivers. Then use
                  $ startx
   to start the xserver. If it doesn’t start, you can try to reboot: $ sudo reboot. If that doesn’t work, try reading the bug report in the link above and try to get it working.
3. Now my guide gets a little more vague. We’re going to install the official drivers, but in my case that didn’t work directly. I will first give you the steps in a way I think I solved the problem, then I will give you all the changes I made in case you don’t get it working. I hope you won’t be needing them.

   In my opinion, the reason why you can’t succesfully install the official drivers is because of envyng. I thought I uninstalled it quite some time ago, but after the upgrade I found it again in KPackageKit. So, we will need to uninstall it:
                Open KPackageKit, you can find it in the application starter, or as I call it: the menu. Then search for "envy" and you will probably find it. If it’s installed, delete it. If it’s not installed, go to the next step.

4. Now you might want to download the newest drivers from the ati website so you can install them later.
5. Now we are going to remove the open source drivers. search for them in KPackageKit by searching for ¨fglrx¨. Delete the package(s) that go by that name.
6. I’m not sure what will happen, but the graphical interface will probably stay active. Open Konsole, navigate to the folder where you’ve downloaded the driver, and install the file using:
                 $ sudo sh ati-drivers-package-name.run
   follow the instructions, finish the installation and reboot.
7. In my case this worked. I rebooted in a working environment, and noticed compiz started working again.

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If the steps above don’t work, here are some steps I tried in between some of them.

Before step 1:
-This workaround:

          == WORKAROUND ==
         $ export FORCE_ATI_UNINSTALL=/usr/share/ati
         $ apt-get install fglrx

         OR

         – reinstall from the ATI installer to restore the /etc/ati directory
         – then uninstall with ATI script
         – finally installthe ubuntu package.

– I tried $ aticonfig –initial –f a few times.

Between step 2 an 3:

– I tried to install the official drivers without changing anything after step 2.
– I tried to activate/deactivate the drivers with the ¨Hardware Drivers¨ application found in the menu under System. It didn’t give any response.
– I tried to open envyng, but it didn’t give any response.
– I again tried $ aticonfig –initial –f a few times.
– I believe I rebooted a few times after some unsuccesful installations of the commercial drivers.

Note on step 6: I believe I rebooted after step 5, so step 6 would be from kubuntu safe mode terminal. I started the xserver manually with startx after installing the ati drivers.

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I hope this will lead to some solutions. If you have any results using this guide, please give some feedback. That way I may be able to clean up this guide.

If you have any questions, concerning technical things, I recommend asking mr. google first. I’m not very skilled at this.