After waiting a couple of weeks to see if there were any big bugs and problems with the new Ubuntu/Kubuntu Hardy Heron, 8.04, related to IBM/Lenovo T60 and ATI graphic card, I finally decided to give it a shot. Recent ATI.amd.com drivers had a lot of problems on Ubuntu machines. I really don’t know why. I think they don’t even try to install their own drivers. Because if they did, they would easily see so, so obvious problems. It’s crazy if you ask me.

Anyway, to proceed… Kubuntu installation went nice and smooth. I don’t really have screenshots of the installation process, but you’ve probably installed it yourself if you got to this page with google search :).

After installing Kubuntu asked me a couple of very nice questions. Like… would you like to install MP3 support? Of course, the answer was yes and it got installed. Then there was a question about proprietary ATI drivers… also yes.

Then, since I have two monitors at work, I had to type in the console:

sudo aticonfig --dtop=horizontal

to get an extended desktop configuration (Xinerama).

And then started the problems. On logging out or rebooting of machine all I got was a black screen. That sucks. I though it’s gonna go away when I configure everything, but no. Couldn’t set it up.

Finally, after a lot of time searching on the Internet and reading numerous pages, I’ve found a solution to my problem at the following webpage: http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=992

The X server will often freeze when logging out/ending the session.
...
I've mentioned in a previous post that I've got problems with X freezing on
logout/restart.
...
etc...

And then, in Comment #26 From Patrick Chevalley:

Today I solve the problem for my Kubuntu 7.10 / Catalyst 8.3

This is just because /etc/ati/authatieventsd.sh do not search the xauthority
file at the right location. It look like the default for xorg 7 is
/var/run/xauth and this default is used by kdm.

In /etc/ati/authatieventsd.sh, at the function GetServerAuthFile() add :

# Check xorg 7
XDM_AUTH_MASK=/var/run/xauth/A$1*
XDM_AUTH_FILE=`ls -t $XDM_AUTH_MASK 2>/dev/null | head -n 1`   # Choose the newest file
if [ -n "$XDM_AUTH_FILE" ]; then
SERVER_AUTH_FILE=$XDM_AUTH_FILE
DISP_SEARCH_STRING="#ffff#"
return 0
fi

If this not work for you, search if your distrib do not override this value
with AuthDir= in kdmrc file (maybe in /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc)

And it worked!

The final contents of /etc/ati/authatieventsd.sh are:

#!/bin/sh

#
# Control script grant/revoke access to X for the ATI External Events Daemon
#
# Distro maintainers may modify this reference script as necessary to conform
# to their distribution policies.
#
# Copyright (c) 2006, ATI Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.
#

#
# Parameters:
# $1 is a keyword, either "grant" or "revoke"
# $2 is the display name
# $3 is the X authorization file to be authorized
#
# Returns:
# 0 if authorization was successfully granted/revoked
# nonzero on failure
#
# Note:
# The third parameter only makes sense if xauth is being used. If another
# mechanism such as xhost is being used it can be ignored. For setups that
# do not do any form of authentication(!) this script can be trimmed down
# to just "exit 0" and the daemon will assume that it is always authorized.
#

GetServerAuthFile()
{
# Determine where the authorization key may be hiding. The location will
# vary depending upon whether X was started via xdm/kdm, gdm or startx, so
# check each one in turn.

# Check xorg 7
XDM_AUTH_MASK=/var/run/xauth/A$1*
XDM_AUTH_FILE=`ls -t $XDM_AUTH_MASK 2>/dev/null | head -n 1` # Choose the newest file
if [ -n "$XDM_AUTH_FILE" ]; then
SERVER_AUTH_FILE=$XDM_AUTH_FILE
DISP_SEARCH_STRING="#ffff#"
return 0
fi

# Check xdm/kdm

XDM_AUTH_MASK=/var/lib/xdm/authdir/authfiles/A$1*
XDM_AUTH_FILE=`ls -t $XDM_AUTH_MASK 2>/dev/null | head -n 1` # Choose the newest file
if [ -n "$XDM_AUTH_FILE" ]; then
SERVER_AUTH_FILE=$XDM_AUTH_FILE
DISP_SEARCH_STRING="#ffff#"
return 0
fi

# Check gdm

GDM_AUTH_FILE=/var/lib/gdm/$1.Xauth
if [ -e $GDM_AUTH_FILE ]; then
SERVER_AUTH_FILE=$GDM_AUTH_FILE
DISP_SEARCH_STRING="$1"
return 0
fi

# Finally, check for startx

for XPID in `pidof X`; do
TRIAL_XAUTH_FILE=`tr '\0' '\n' < /proc/$XPID/environ | grep -e "^XAUTHORITY=" | cut -d= -f2`
TRIAL_XAUTH_KEY=`xauth -f $TRIAL_XAUTH_FILE list | grep "unix$1"`
if [ -n "$TRIAL_XAUTH_KEY" ]; then
SERVER_AUTH_FILE=$TRIAL_XAUTH_FILE
DISP_SEARCH_STRING="unix$1"
return 0
fi
done

# Couldn't find the key

return -1
}

# Main part of script

#
# Since the daemon is usually started during init time before X comes up,
# $PATH may not yet contain the paths to the X binaries, particularly xauth.
# Add the usual location for where xauth may live and fail out if we still
# can't find it.
#

PATH=$PATH:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin
which xauth > /dev/null || exit -1

case "$1" in
grant)
GetServerAuthFile $2 || exit -1
DISP_AUTH_KEY=`xauth -f $SERVER_AUTH_FILE list | grep $DISP_SEARCH_STRING | awk '{ print $3 }'`
if [ -n "$DISP_AUTH_KEY" ]; then
xauth -f $3 add $2 . $DISP_AUTH_KEY || exit -1
else
exit -1
fi
;;

revoke)
xauth -f $3 remove $2 || exit -1
;;

*)
exit -1
;;
esac
exit 0

If you want you can overwrite the original contents of this file with the one pasted here. Or you can copy them from the pastebin if you have problems getting them from here: http://pastebin.com/f6e6ae392

I would really like if ATI/amd maintainers did their job and fixed the scripts at least for the mainstream distributions. It’s not like Ubuntu is not used by anyone…

I don’t really get it…

Anyway, “it works for me”, now