Well, first, don't run X or startx as root. Ever.

Second, you should stop the X process you already have running before you do this.

Third, according to your log file, you are using the correct driver, and everything looks fine. What makes you think it's not working?

EDIT:

In other words, you still haven't defined "mediocre graphics mode" in any detail.

Adam

Easy answer.

(I'm having to run in XP for the moment - so I am doing this from memory)

In the display preference there are three graphic modes none, normal and Enhanced?

At this time, it is set to NONE. When I click on the NORMAL display option it says that it is searching for something (driver? I'm not sure I remember) and then comes back and says that it can't set the graphics to the Normal mode.

That is what I mean by mediocre. I know the controller is not as powerful as my two evga 8800 768MB gtx cards that are collecting dust because i can't afford to fix the machine they go in, but it should at least do the Normal mode.

Thanks

It's just a bad idea to run commands as root unless absolutely necessary. Helps to keep you from doing things like removing the entire / filesystem :-)

As for none vs. normal... What happens if you bring up a terminal and run 'compiz &' ?

Adam

Thanks for the waring about root.

Hmmm. I did that once, removed the entire system. Just to see. at / I entered rm -r *

I was getting ready to reconfigure a machine and I wanted to see how long it would take for it to crater. Surprisingly it took a minute for it to get hung up.

I also got bit by the rm -r * command when I was developing software.

Thought I was in a lower level directory, was in my upper level directory; was in a hurry, didn't look and when I realize what happened, that it was starting to delete ALL of my source code, I hit CTRL-ALT-DEL the panic from DOS that I was becoming familiar with and realized that HEY that didn't work so I dove under the desk, feeling great pain as I yanked the plug. I only lost 70% of what I had worked on. In a way it was a good thing. I was able to rebuild all of it in a month, better than the original.

I may be rusty with Linux info, but I was the Manager of the System Administration group for the Wiltel's Advanced Technology Group ATG (the "Bell Labs" ow what later became the now defunct MCIWorldcom) so I am at least "aware" of what can happen running stuff from root.

That was one of the coolest places to work. I was there between 1991 - 1194.

I had 260 NeXT workstations (this gave us World Wide Web two weeks after Tim Berners-Lee unleashed it to the world and a network copy of DOOM soon after that).
We had Auspex File Servers, Silicon graphics machines, Sun, HP, IBM UNIX compute servers, a 64BIT DEC Alpha, a few 0S/2 machines and 1 Windows 3.1 machine.

I also had this crazy homogeneous network with this brand new thing called 10Base T Ethernet, FDDI, Token Ring,
Frame Relay, X.25., some fiber optics and a few machines still on Thin-Net.

We had scalable mainframes, OOP Object Repositories, I was also a Senior Software Engineer we were doing things with ; 20 ATM switches that we were co-designing with NEC (spent 5 months in Japan doing Acceptance Test Plans)

I call them the "glory days"

(Sorry for all of the reminiscing text; it's a bonus?)

I'll have to leave XP and boot into Linux and run the compiz &

I'll get back to you on the other side.

after compiz & ...
rjw@rjw-desktop:~$ Blacklisted PCI ID 8086:2562 detected

Launching fallback window manager

If you type sudo -i you get a root prompt from a shell.
You will need to supply a password one time. CTRL-D to end root session.

~~~ 0;-Dan

OK, so Ubuntu has blacklisted your GPU from running compiz. They've probably received complaints regarding the stability of your GPU in conjunction with compiz. I have no idea how stable that combination is, or if the complaints are recent or just historic. In past versions of Ubuntu you could bypass the checks that it performs (including the blacklist) by running 'SKIP_CHECKS=yes compiz &' but I do not know if that is still possible in 10.04. You'll have to give it a try.

Adam

Now, there's another wrinkle. I can only use the system now for about a short time, about 35 minutes or so.

The attached image illustrates what I see with the exception that the lines are equally distant from each other, they span the entire screen and they have square edges. I could not find a sold square brush in that Gimp Program (I'm a Paint Shop Pro guy)

The screen starts to go from completely black to the pattern on the picture.

I don't know what's happening, but I can describe what i saw when it happened a few moments ago. I happened to catch a glimpse of some text and the last line was Checking battery and then the screen started to blink.

I don't think the system is freezing. I have it set that when I hit the power button the system is to shut down immediately. When I do hit the power button in this state, the Ubuntu splash screen comes up and the system shuts down.

The only things I have done is messed with the xorg.conf and now I am not using it.

What has me just a wee bit concerned, is that I spent a very long time the first day I got into the graphics mode 4 days ago. It's today and yesterday that this has occurred.

SKIP_CHECKS=yes compiz & didn't work.
It did have the effect of rendering my keyboard inoperable.

So is there anyone that can answer these questions?

1) Are there open source intel drivers?
2_IF I try to install the intel drivers that are compatible with the kernel that's version 2.4 will I do irreparable damage to the Linux System?
3) How do you change a thread from SOLVED to not solved.
4) Is there a universal command that I can issue (in case I introduced something with my fiddling around) that can restore the system to a pristine state with all of the default settings in place?

I want to believe, Linux with all of its sophistication is capable of being configured so that I can use this machine. That lame XP OS can do it. There has to be a way.

I'm not sure where compwiz is getting the 8086:2562

lspci output (video only)
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 03)

unless I missed an entry in the lspci that indicated that further down on the listing.

The info on the compwiz site http://wiki.compiz.org/Hardware/Blacklist it says the Intel card is a 965 which makes no sense at all.

The more I dig into the is the more layers of weirdness it has.

1) The intel drivers you are using are open source. There are no closed source drivers for your GPU.

2,3) No idea.

4) Not really, no. Your best bet would be to restore your system from backups that I'm sure you've created :-)

Unfortunately I have no more guidance to give. All I can really suggest at this point is opening up a bug report with Ubuntu.

Adam

8086:2562 are the manufacture and model PCI IDs. The numbers listed in lspci is the BusID. Big difference. The "-n" option to lspci will show PCI IDs.

Adam

Thanks everyone for your help.

Well, I guess that's it.

Until I can get some cash, and upgrade to a better computer, I will be stuck with not having a driver that works.

Oh well.