Gnome-shell does not display top toolbar panel using a Mobility Radeon 5650

Gnome shell installed through software centre does not display top toolbar panel properly (missing text and icons), and when one of the icons on it eg user's name is clicked the menu popup has missing text. Also when searching for application after pressing the super key, the filter list on the right is also missing random text letters often replaced by small rectangular [] shape.

EDIT: It's the ATI drivers (using Mobility Radeon 5650), but after it's un-installed gnome-panel falls back to classic only and the system has to be reinstalled for the gnome-panel to work again. If the ATI drivers are not installed even the login screen lags when typing password. Also the ATI (post-release) driver never installs properly, the standard however does.

Solution 1:

The new 12.1 are 100% working on both my mobility and desktop ATI card but only if the dependencies listed below are installed first (i.e. don't download off the installer and try to execute it otherwise it breaks gnome 3). To properly install 12.1, type the following in terminal:

sudo apt-get install build-essential cdbs fakeroot dh-make debhelper debconf libstdc++6 dkms libqtgui4 wget execstack libelfg0 dh-modaliases
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
cd ~/; mkdir catalyst12.1; cd catalyst12.1/
wget http://www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/amd-driver-installer-12-1-x86.x86_64.run
sh ./amd-driver-installer-12-1-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Ubuntu/oneiric
sudo dpkg -i fglrx*.deb
sudo aticonfig --initial -f

Then restart.

Solution 2:

I was having the same problem as reported and tried at least three fixes listed here and elsewhere. I finally found an Ubuntu Wiki entry that made everything just work on my ATI 4200 with Oneiric and gnome-shell from the Ubuntu standard repositories.

I don't know why this works, and after spending the better part of 2001 trying to make X work on Linux have absolutely no interest in figuring out why.

Pasted here for convenience, please consider the link more authoritative:

Problem: Need to fully remove -fglrx and reinstall -ati from scratch Here is a more aggressive recipe which removes both -fglrx and -ati, and reinstalls the latter:

sudo /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh  # (if it exists)
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx*
sudo apt-get remove --purge xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-radeon 
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati
sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgl1-mesa-glx libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-core
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg