For those who are unable to run the 'qdec' app because it exits with a 'Bad Match' error, there is a new fix you can try. Put this text:
Section "Extensions" Option "Composite" "false" EndSection
at the end of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. You will need root privileges to make this edit. This seems to work for ATI graphics cards. For NVidia, try replacing the word 'false' with 'Disable'.
If qdec opens for you already, you don't need this fix.
Note that you should no longer need to 'setenv XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS 1', which means that images should render using hardware acceleration (assuming your driver and X windows implementation supports that).
It's not known what impact disabling the 'Composite' function of the driver will have on other applications, but it seems it has been disabled in RHEL 4 and earlier Linux variants, but is enabled in later (5,6,7, Ubunutu), which is why the problem appears in those.
Another note, this doesn't address the problem with tksurfer not displaying the surface on ATI cards, although I have found the v.33 of the driver works.
Nick