[ale] help - ATI video card hell

[Ron Frazier]

Hi all,

My desktop machine formerly had an ATI Radeon 4670 video card.  Since 
that card was getting a bit long in the tooth, I decided to replace it.  
I got an ATI / AMD Radeon 6770 made by Diamond Multimedia, which is a 
fairly powerful and modern card.  Previously, with the old card, Ubuntu 
10.04 was driving my 1920 x 1080 display at full resolution just fine.  
Now, with the new card, I was horrified, horrified I tell you, to find 
that it's now displaying a square picture on my widescreen monitor.  
When I try to go into the Gnome monitor configuration tool, it says this 
tool isn't compatible and asks if I want to use the vendor's tool 
instead.  If I click yes, another error pops up and says it couldn't 
start the Catalyst Control Center.  If I start the Gnome tool and ignore 
the initial warning, the highest resolution it reports is 1280 x 1024.  
I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit.  I installed the following PPA in the 
repository settings that I read on a forum somewhere related to these 
issues.

http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates/ubuntu

By searching for "ati" in the synaptic package manager, I get the 
following which are already installed:

fglrx
fglrx-amdcccle
fglrx-modaliases
jockey-common
jockey-gtk
radeontool
xserver-xorg-video-ati
xserver-xorg-video-mach64
xserver-xorg-video-r128
xserver-xorg-video-radeon

Finally, I found this file on the AMD website but don't know what to do 
with it.

ati-driver-installer-11-10-x86.x86_64.run

I want to use a graphical install procedure if one is available, 
although I can and will munge around in the command line if needed.  I 
really want this to be integrated into the package manager, so I'll get 
automatic updates.  Any help will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in 
advance.

Sincerely,

Ron

-- 

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Ron Frazier

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linuxdude AT c3energy.com