I been running Ubuntu 12.04 since alpha with the ATI open source drivers and with Gnome-Shell. I been generally very happy with them with only small issues along the way. Now of course it does not support 3D acceleration 100%, so games Amnesia would not play. The ATI driver is in the repos. How I use my computer:
- It's laptop, with a HD 3670 card in it.
- I spend about 50% of the time working directly on the laptop (at home) and about 50% of the time working with an additional display connected (at work), multi desktop environment.
What happening now:
- installed drivers
- things seemed to working, save some small other bugs (not critical)
- this morning I take my machine and plug the additional monitor into it, and nothing happens... ok fine.
- open "displays" try configure dual display, won't work
- open ati config "thing" (cause it is a thing, a crap thing) and set-up monitors there
- reboot it says (oh ffs, really.... ok)
- reboot, login and wow, I got a gnome 2 desktop (presume gnome 3 fall back) and no multi-monitor...great. (screenshot: http://ubuntuone.com/5tFe3QNFsTSIGvUSVLsyL7 )
- after getting into a situation where I had to Ctrl + Alt + Del to get out of a frozen display, I eventually manage to set-up a single display desktop on the "main" monitor
- ok.. time to go home... unplug monitor... nothing happens.. oh boy here we go...
- try displays again, nothing, just hangs the display.. great. crash all the apps and reboot...
So it's been a trying day...
Please help with a solution that:
- allows me run fglrx (so I can run the games I want)
- allows me to hot-plug a monitor to my laptop and remove it again
- allows me to change the display so include the hot-plugged monitor (preferable automatically like it did with the open drivers)
Next best if that's not possible:
- Switch between laptop only display and monitor only display easily (not having to reboot, logout, suspened, etc...)