Fix the build problem with ATI drivers on Ubuntu/Gutsy

The later “Catalyst” version of the ATI proprietary drivers, 8.2 (8.45.5), 8.1 (8.45.2), and 7.11 (8.43.3) do not have this problem, so this page is now obsolete.

The previous non-Catalyst version, 8.42.3, solved a long-standing problem with the ATI proprietary drivers for the first time: not being able to run Compiz or Beryl easily because of lack of support for compositing.

The driver packages, for all versions, allow you to build .deb packages for a variety of distributions, including Ubuntu/gutsy, like this:

$ sh ./ati-driver-installer-8.42.3-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/gutsy

Unfortunately, on x86_64 (aka amd64), building the 8.42.3 package failed with an error message about missing files in X11R6/lib:

# amd64 needs some library redirection

[snip]

dh_install -pxorg-driver-fglrx "usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri"     "usr/lib32"
cp: cannot stat `./usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri': No such file or directory
dh_install: command returned error code 256
make: *** [binary] Error 1
Removing temporary directory: fglrx-install.E10832

The problem was that ATI's build script looked for some 32-bit libraries, common to both the 64bit and 32bit drivers, in the wrong place.

Solution

The solution is very easy, you just do the following:

• Extract the package
• Copy missing files to their correct location
• Build the package

Assuming that you've downloaded the package into the “current” directory, all you do is:

$ bash ati-driver-installer-8.42.3-x86.x86_64.run --extract ati-driver
$ cd ati-driver
$ cp -r arch/x86/usr/X11R6/lib arch/x86_64/usr/X11R6/
$ ./packages/Ubuntu/ati-packager.sh --buildpkg gutsy

The packages should build correctly.

After doing this, I was able to install the packages and follow this guide to get Compiz working on Ubuntu/gutsy on an Athlon64 with an ATI X1550.