i have done other things also such as update compiz.

well i installed the newest ATI drivers from the website(10-5)and rebooted, this may or may not be related to my issues. but since then things have been going slow. for example if i click and drag a window around it is really slow and jumpy.

also i updated compiz for some reason i cant change my compiz settings with the manager, all the check boxes are faded. and whether im on compiz or metacity the windowas have annoying animations.

finally i cant watch youtube videos in full screen suddenly, when i press the button it just turns the player into a grey box.

sorry for all the questions but everything seems to have gone wrong for me.

thanks.

EDIT: more info, if i go to 'hardware drivers' it says drivers are not activated. i press activate but it says this:
Sorry, the installation of this driver failed.

Please have a look at the log file for details.: /var/log/jockey.log

here is the jocky.log http://pastebin.com/SCaSTdfh

OK, well generally I would say that you should stick with the drivers via jockey, but since you've already installed the 10.5 drivers from the AMD website, and may have screwed things up, let's check to see if 10.5 is working properly or not.

Please pastebin your /var/log/Xorg.0.log file.

Did you ever run ccsm as root or with sudo? Please show us the output of 'ls -la ~/.config/compiz/compizconfig' (as your normal user).

Define "annoying animations"?

ok here is the xorg log file http://pastebin.com/RsPNw2Ms


i dont think i have ever ran CCSM as root.

neil@neil-desktop:~$ ls -la ~/.config/compiz/compizconfig
total 12
drwx------ 2 neil neil 4096 2010-06-03 16:35 .
drwx------ 3 neil neil 4096 2010-06-03 16:36 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 neil neil 57 2010-06-05 10:24 config

well some people may not find it annoying. it's just the the wobbly or wavy animations which are selectable on CCSM

X is using /etc/X11/xorg.conf.failsafe, which means that you are using the vesa driver. Can you check to see if there's a /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old file and pastebin that one instead?

Adam

heres the file: http://pastebin.com/EM1WPRqQ

You would appear not to have the kernel module installed. How did you install the driver from the website (did you just run the .run file or did you use the --buildpkg option)? What's the output of 'dmesg | grep fglrx' and 'modinfo fglrx'?

i just entered sudo sh ./ati-driver-installer-10-5-x86.x86_64.run to install it.

dmesg | grep fglrx gives no output at all and modinfo fglrx gives this error
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module fglrx

Alright, so the installer never built the kernel module for some reason. And, on Ubuntu, you should never install the drivers from AMD that way.

I would recommend running the uninstall script in /usr/share/ati/ and then removing all fglrx related packages you see in synaptic (except for fglrx-modaliases). Then reinstall libgl1-mesa-dri and libgl1-mesa-glx and remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf. This should get you working exactly as it did out-of-the-box.

Now, you have two choices. You can use version 10.4 simply by installing it via jockey (aka 'hardware drivers'), or you can install 10.5 by running the installer with the "--buildpkg Ubuntu/Lucid" option. Make sure you have the linux-source package installed either way. That section option will create .deb files that you can then install with dpkg. You *may* also have to use module-assistant to build the kernel module (the "hardware drivers" method should take care of that for you).

Unless you know of some improvement in 10.5 vs 10.4, I would stick with 10.4 from jockey.

Adam

i got this message

neil@neil-desktop:~$ sudo '/usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh'
[sudo] password for neil:

[Warning] Uninstall : inst_path_default or inst_path_override
does not exist in /etc/ati. This suggests that the ATI driver
is not installed, the ATI driver is only partially installed,
or the current ATI driver installed is an older version than the
one this script was designed for. Both files listed above are
required for determining where installed files are located.
To force uninstallation of the driver by guessing where the
uninstallation files are located, set the FORCE_ATI_UNINSTALL
environment variable and re-run /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh (this is not recommended).

neil@neil-desktop:~$

And this is why you shouldn't just run the installer from AMD :-)

I honestly do not know what to tell you at this point. Maybe try removing the drivers via synaptic and then rerunning the AMD installer (your system is clearly broken already, so it can't hurt), and then trying to uninstall the drivers via the script in /usr/share/ati/

Adam

yeah i have learned my lesson, how does something go from being an extreamly simple task in windows to being a system breaker in linux? dont get me wrong i've used windows all my life and am new to linux but already i love it.

how can i make my ubuntu install like it was out the box? is the only way to reinstall?

It's not a complicated process if you check the documentation on the subject before diving right in :-) https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI

You could try setting FORCE_ATI_UNINSTALL to true and then running the uninstaller, or you could try my other suggestion of removing fglrx via synaptic, then rerunning the installer, and then rerunning the uninstall script.

Actually, first, just show us the output of:

dpkg -l | grep fglrx

And we'll go from there.

ok here is the command output

neil@neil-desktop:~$ dpkg -l | grep fglrx
rH fglrx 2:8.723.1-0ubuntu3 Video driver for the ATI graphics accelerato
ii fglrx-modaliases 2:8.723.1-0ubuntu3 Identifiers supported by the ATI graphics dr
rc xorg-driver-fglrx 2:8.723.1-0ubuntu3 Transitional package for xorg-driver-fglrx
neil@neil-desktop:~$

OK, so only fglrx-modaliases is installed, if I'm understanding that correctly. All I can really suggest is reinstalling the drivers via the run script you downloaded from AMD, and then seeing if you can uninstall them with the uninstall script.

Adam

that didn't work either sadly. my system is seriously messed up.