I have xFree86-Mesa-libGL that I need to install in order to install my graphics drivers, apparently.

At least, ATI's multiple guides tell me so.

And I still can't figure out how to install the dang drivers themselves.

Ubuntu is debian variant. RPM are for red hatted ppl. You can always get sources and make debian packets by yourself. That way you won't mess up you package manager and you can uninstall/install packages you have made very easily. Heres instructions how to do it:

http://www.linux.com/articles/60383

That's what I meant to say I was working on doing.

Anyhow, I figured out how to install my drivers. http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7193 did the trick

Do not use the Mesa drivers. They suck.

For ease of use, use the Synaptic Packet manager to install the following.

Search for fglrx
Select fglrx-amdcccle
Select xorg-driver-fglrx
Click Apply

Open Administration > Hardware Drivers.
Activate the ATi/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver.

Best Radeon drivers you can get for Ubuntu and they're straight from ATi/AMD.

If you are planning on building any sources yourself make sure you have all the gcc/g++ libs installed through the package manager. I would also say to learn to use the terminal, just as easy as using dos and the best way to get your head around the system architechture as a whole.

I think almost every programm for Fedora or Redhat you have in the ubuntu repositories.

I use ubuntu since 2006 and never had to install a programm I need manually with the commandline. I start synaptic and click on the programm I want to install it. Much easier than in windows. Where you have to buy a lot of programms for the daily use or search for it on different websites. On Ubuntu you have only to click the programms you want in synaptic.

So if you want a programm and you do not find it in synaptic look in the ubuntu faqs for the right repository or perhaps look on http://www.getdeb.net/

What?

And nobody tried to stop you?

STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING RIGHT NOW!!!!!

I'm not joking, you're destroying your OS. What you're doing is pure nonsense and will bear only frustration. I can't believe nobody in this thread tried to stop you. Some even talk to you about apt-get and compilation, despite you saying you're a newbie (which wasn't necessary, it's obvious).

I can only guess most people that answered to you here are newbie too.

This website is not the place you should be if you need assistance. You should be on Ubuntu forums.

Besides, you don't need to do anything with RPM or other nonsense. There's only one thing you need to do, which installs everything automagically. A notification should appear after some time in the upside menu bar, telling you that you can use faster drivers. Or you can go in the menu option System -> Administration -> Device Drivers or sth like that.

Anyway, don't ever do nonsense like trying to install things by hand, especially when you don't know what you're doing. For example, the link you gave is for Ubuntu 7.10 and is therefore completely obsolete and useless.

The very fact that you cited libstdc++, fontconfig, zlib among the things you need should have raised an alarm bell on anyone that know even a little of Linux or even Unix. Really, don't try to do such things again.

Go to Ubuntu forums, some users give advice without knowing anything at all, but at least you have a better probability of finding someone knowledgeable.

AMD freed more video driver sources, so I don't know the state of ATI cards on Ubuntu, but sure enough they know better on Ubuntu forums. 8.10 may even have installed the best drivers already, and you may be trying to destroy them.

Ookaze said basically what I was saying. All that command line stuff is too much for a new guy. If they drivers aren't there already, use Synaptic to get them and the Hardware Driver to activate it.

ookaze is right, go through my list and the first thing I said to try was the hardware drivers menu, then if that fails you try envy ng, and if all else fails you compile from source.

Nickel, Envy and source should not even be needed at all. There is no reason the Snyaptic PM and Hardware Drivers shouldn't do the trick from the start unless he has some serious hardware problems or older ATi graphic cards (which he doesn't).