Using Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS Desktop w/ ATI Stream SDK v1.2.1-beta

1. Download ubuntu-8.04.1-alternate-amd64.iso from Ubuntu website and burn it to DVD.
2. Install Ubuntu 8.04.1 LTS onto free partition
3. Download Catalyst 8.9 from http://ati.amd.com/support/dri.../linux64-rf-cat89.html (ati-driver-installer-8-9-x86.x86_64.run)
4. Log in and become root (i.e. "sudo bash")
5. Go to the directory with the installer file and type "./ati-driver-installer-8-6-x86.x86_64.run" and select all of the default choices
6. Type "aticonfig -v" (or "aticonfig --initial" if you have never setup ATI driver for the OS yet)
7. Restart the X server
8. Log in into the X server (or start up a new X session)
9. In an xterm, type "xdpyinfo | less"
   
   - Make sure that "ATIFGLRXDRI" and "XFree86-DRI" show up under the list of extensions
10. Download AMD Stream SDK v1.2.1-beta from http://developer.amd.com/gpu/ATIStreamSDK/pages/PreviousATIStreamSDKReleasePackages.aspx(amdstream-1.2.1_beta-lnx64.zip)
11. Become root (i.e. "sudo bash")
12. Go to the directory with the installer file and type "tar xvfz amdstream-1.2.1_beta-lnx64.tar.gzip"
13. Make sure "alien" is installed. It is the tool used to convert between .rpm files and .deb files
    
    - Type "which alien". If it does not find the executable, you need to use apt-get to install "alien" before proceeding
    - Type "apt-get install alien". If that does not work, it is either because your Internet connection is down or you have not updated your package source database. Check that your Internet connection is working and type "apt-get update"
14. The next few steps will repackage the .rpm files into a .deb file suitable for use on Debian-based systems (such as Ubuntu):
    
    - dd if=amdstream-cal-1.2.1_beta.x86_64.run of=amdcal.tar.gz bs=1 skip=16384 [this will take a few moments; it strips away the run script at the beginning]
    - mkdir amdcal; cd amdcal; tar xvfz ../amdcal.tar.gz
    - alien amdstream-cal-1.2.1_beta-1.x86_64.rpm
    - dpkg -i amdstream-cal_1.2.1_beta-2_amd64.deb
    - cd ..
    - dd if=amdstream-brook-1.2.1_beta.x86_64.run of=amdbrook.tar.gz bs=1 skip=16384 [this will take a few moments; it strips away the run script at the beginning]
    - mkdir amdbrook; cd amdbrook; tar xvfz ../amdbrook.tar.gz
    - alien amdstream-brook-1.2.1_beta-1.x86_64.rpm
    - dpkg -i amdstream-brook_1.2.1_beta-2_amd64.deb
15. Type "apt-get install libstdc++5"
16. Add the following lines to your startup file if you are using bash:
    
    - export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/amdbrook/sdk/lib:/usr/local/amdcal/lib64:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
    - export PATH=/usr/local/amdbrook/sdk/bin:$PATH
17. Add the equivalent if you are using a shell other than bash.
18. Go to "/usr/local/amdcal/bin/lnx64" and type "./FindNumDevices". This should return "Device Count = 1" if you have a single GPU in your system supported by CAL.
19. NOTE: You will see a long backtrace whenever you run applications with CAL 1.2.1-beta on Ubuntu 8.04 starting with "Locking assertion failure. Backtrace:...". This is harmless and simply annoying. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to turn this off at the moment unless you recompile libxcb. This will be fixed in a future version of CAL.
    

If you are adventurous and want to compile out the locking checks temporarily from libxcb, you can do the following:

1. Create a working directory and cd to that directory.
2. Type: apt-get source libxcb
3. Type: cd libxcb-1.1
4. Type: ./configure CFLAGS=-DNDEBUG (it may complain about missing packages, in which case, use Synaptics Package Manager from the GUI to grab the appropriate pacakages and run the command again)
5. Type: make (wait for it to finish compiling)
6. Become root and type: cp src/.libs/libxcb.so.1 src/.libs/libxcb-xlib.so.0 /usr/local/amdcal/lib64
7. Now, your programs should use your newly compiled version of libxcb without the locking checks.