Ubuntu 11.10 is a nightmare to many of us. The new unitiy-launcher (I didnt use it in 11.04) is a usability-nightmare to me and so are many other features. Never was upgrade or installation so hard.

I try to collect the things here that were especially difficult and hard to me

Do not use the restricted-drivers that are offered by ubuntu. The “jockey-backend” (thats what restricted drivers seems to be called inside ubuntu) will fail, timeout and keep your system broken.

Manually download the linux-drivers from ATI-webpage (http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx) and install them.

This will also help you detect your monitors. Standard fglrx-drivers on ubuntu did not detect my monitors proper.

The hard one. I have a normal and a widescreen-monitor and want a multi-display. Left monitor should be 1280×1024 and right 1680×1050. You notice the 26-pixel missing. It worked in 10.10 and 11.04 and I want it again cause its the best solution and you will not notice in daily work.

In ATI CATALYST CENTER I could not setup this. I could setup, but when pressing apply or ok nothing happened and when calling the center again it was old clone-setup again.

The following finally worked. All steps necessary !!

1. open catalyst center and make multi-display-setup with 1280×1024 on each monitor.
2. reboot
3. open catalyst center and make multi-display-setup with 1280×1024 and 1680×1050 and click apply / ok
4. open displays in system settings and just click APPLY. nothing else. This will make the above step permanent. Otherwise it will be lost on next reboot/logout