I've recently switched to using ubuntu 9.10 as my operating system and when I try to compile and run programs that I had previously written on windows they seem to crash because the opengl version is 1.5 whereas on windows it was > 2.0. I called glGetString(GL_EXTENSIONS) and noticed that not even the GL_ARB_vertex_shader or GL_ARB_fragment_shader extensions are supported. I know this is probaly somthing to do with the open source source ATI driver that linux provides and that it can't access all the features of my ATI card (I have a radeon X1300/1550). I've looked at trying to install the fglrx proprietary driver but I don't think my card is supported. Does this mean I need to switch back to windows just so that I can use shaders?

There's not a lot you can do if the driver doesn't support it. You could check to see if your drivers support GL_ARB_vertex_program and GL_ARB_fragment_program; these are the assembly shaders.

I've tried almost everything to get the proprietary driver to work. I've even upgraded to lucid (10.04) before I seen this on the link you provided:

Quote:
The Linux ATI Catalyst™ driver will only be supported in Linux distributions prior to February 2009 for the legacy products listed above.

I'll try running the installer again and see what happens. I've got a feeling I'll need to reinstall this version (10.04) of ubuntu again anyway, I seem to have accidentally uninstalled the open source driver and can't get it back, all I get now when I run opengl apps is "Segmentation fault" :(