That does look and sound like a problem with the driver, yes.
I don't know how recent the ubuntu repo is.
Best try to install the binary directly from ATI.
OK, I'll try that, thanks.
If that behavior is only occurring when you start it from some obscure main menu, then you need to check that menu and modify the entry so it is the exact same as what you enter in a terminal.
Yeah, the menu entry had a --quiet flag on the command, which I wasn't entering at the terminal. BUT I have now updated the menu entry to be the same as what I'm typing at the terminal, and I still see the garbled text when starting through the menu. When starting from the terminal, it is fine regardless of whether I put --quiet or not, so clearly the issue is something else connected to the menu. Later, when I have a bit more time, I'll change the menu entry to run a terminal and have it start tremulous from there, to see if that makes any difference. Obviously the workaround is fairly obvious but it would be nice to have it working through the menu.
Any thoughts on the fullscreen<->windowed crash, or is that likely to be the driver as well? Also I was playing earlier and my battery monitor brought up a notice about power running low, which also caused tremulous to crash. My guess is that is the same problem and my window-manager was forcing it into windowed mode so I could see the message.
Thanks for your help.