newbie to graphics drivers

[Panix]

Hello,
I was wondering if someone can advise me here. I'm not even sure if I should be using this section or the open source ATI graphics drivers section. I installed Google Earth and when I started it, it recommended I upgrade my graphics drivers.

I have an ATI X300SE and I went to ATI's website and the latest proprietary driver is 8.40.4 but I read on here people using 8.41 and there is even discussion of a 'new' driver coming out, 8.42.

Can someone advise me what to do and which driver to install (I am guessing the 8.40 driver at ATI's site for using Google Earth.) I should install one of them to optimize Google Earth, right? I couldn't find any in the repositories (I'm using Kubuntu but this question is probably applicable for a number of distros?).

I have one other concern, though. I would like to upgrade my graphics card eventually so would I be opening a can of worms by installing graphics drivers which would be incorrect when I upgrade the card? I am wondering how problematic that becomes. I would probably go with an Nvidia card, too. I would have to uninstall the ATI drivers in that case but how would that work and is that a problem?

I know this is the right place to learn about installing drivers so here's my post! :-)

[Kano]

You can't use 8.40.4 for google earth. Older or newer drivers would work. To install the latest possible you could use my script:

http://kanotix.com/files/install-fglrx-debian.sh