Comment 4 for bug 464525

fglrx on AMD64 Karmic works (partly) for me, with a 4670 desktop card. I don't see any kernel crashes or boot problems. OTOH, I boot up in text mode with no splash-screen crap of any kind, so when I run startx, it's from VGA text mode, and the video card wasn't in any other mode from POST until then. (text grub, and no splash boot for the kernel either. console-setup or something loads a new VGA font, but that's all.) So perhaps the crashes you're seeing are because the card is in a different state from mine when the module loads?

 Wait, you said it hangs right after _loading_ grub? Before it boots the Linux kernel? So you can't interrupt GRUB's auto-boot timeout and get to its command prompt? That sucks! And maybe I should open a new bug. Ubuntu maintainers, please advise.

The reason I say only partially working for me is that there seems to be an ABI problem with 64bit opengl.

$ glxgears
Error: couldn't get an RGB, Double-buffered visual
$ ~/bin32/glxgears -printfps
43610 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8721.957 FPS
44711 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8942.127 FPS

$ fglrxinfo -v

Visual ID: 23 depth=24 class=TrueColor
    bufferSize=4096 level=0 renderType=ci doubleBuffer=0 stereo=1257495371
    rgba: redSize=107937997 greenSize=0 blueSize=1257495371 alphaSize=0
    auxBuffers=0 depthSize=107937997 stencilSize=0
    accum: redSize=1257495371 greenSize=0 blueSize=107937997 alphaSize=0
    multiSample=0 multiSampleBuffers=0
    Opaque.
Visual ID: 24 depth=24 class=TrueColor
    bufferSize=4096 level=0 renderType=ci doubleBuffer=0 stereo=1257495371
    rgba: redSize=107937997 greenSize=0 blueSize=1257495371 alphaSize=0
    auxBuffers=0 depthSize=107937997 stencilSize=0
    accum: redSize=1257495371 greenSize=0 blueSize=107937997 alphaSize=0
    multiSample=0 multiSampleBuffers=0
    Opaque.
...

every visual has the same garbage numbers. So probably in 64 bit mode, the OpenGL library is looking at the wrong block of memory when looking for the supported visuals from the server, so nothing works. 32bit games work fine, with no performance problems or anything (e.g. I played a bit of nexuiz, and that uses lots of recent OpenGL features.) Linux Descent3 also runs fine. (runs quite well on a c2d + 4670, actually :)

  Xv works, for amd64 and i386 binaries. I haven't noticed any problems on my desktop, running fluxbox, gnome-terminal and firefox, and sometimes other GUI stuff.

 Any 64bit binary that wants to use OpenGL gets the same error about not being able to find a visual. Even glxinfo (unlike fglrxinfo) bails after that:
$ glxinfo -v
name of display: :0.0
Error: couldn't find RGB GLX visual or fbconfig

 same situation with fglrx from Karmic
ii fglrx-kernel-source 2:8.660-0ubuntu4 Kernel module source for the ATI graphics accelerators
or ATI Catalyst 9.10 (8.661)

 I'm running Ubuntu's 2.6.31-14.48-generic kernel.

my xorg.conf was generated from empty by aticonfig, and has nothing special. I moved aside my old one that's been growing cruft for years... (but worked with Jaunty & Catalyst 9.8).

 I've googled, but I haven't seen anyone say anything about the problem I'm seeing (everything works except 64bit opengl). That's weird, because I'm using the Ubuntu versions of everything. Although I don't have ubuntu-desktop installed; I prefer a lighter-weight environment...