Running in software rendering mode..
 

Hi
I have a dell Inspiron 1010 notebook and have been using Windows XP but with the end of MS support thought I'd install Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon alongside.
The installation from a usb went well and the internet, office etc, seem to be all running well.
Problem is that immediately after booting, a box comes up on the desktop saying Cinnamon is running in software rendering mode without video hardware acceleration.
In addition, or maybe because of (?) sound either through the internet or Banshee or VLC comes out cracked and broken and when I play a film, I get the cracked and broken sound but no picture or, if a picture comes up, it freezes on screen.
I'd really appreciate some help here - it's driving me nuts - and as it stands, is no replacement for Windows.
Thanks...

The limited specs on that machine seems to suggest intel graphics.

Intel US15W

$ sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel

Or however that's packaged in mint. Kernel wise it appears to use the gma500_gfx kernel module.

$ sudo modprobe gma500_gfx

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/...ml?wapkw=us15w

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
It looks like that is using the Intel GMA500 video chip. It's a piece of junk. And Intel made a monumentally stupid decision to license the chip and put their name on it. The driver is proprietary, and basically can't be made to work in Linux.
Alan Cox wrote an open source driver that has 2D support, but not hardware acceleration. So video isn't ever going to work well until that is added to the open source driver that is now in the kernel. I spent a lot of time trying to get GMA500 to work a couple of years back - I junked the netbook.

Have a read of this for some other commentary.

Well, thanks very much for the info; it seems like nothing works. I'm not quite ready to ditch the Dell so I'm going to have to think again... Appreciate the quick response anyway.

as far as vlc (and maybe other media players) is concerned, you can disable hardware accel.
in vlc: tools -> preferences -> video -> UNcheck "accelerated video output".

the sound problems are a different issue altogether, but maybe your system is just at its limits with the (not-so-lightweight) cinnamon desktop. in cinnamon, skim all "settings" and "system settings" dialogs and disable all fancy effects, or compositing completely.

Thanks for that but we have a 500gb hard drive with 2gb ram so shouldn't it run ok space wise?
I think it most probably is the Intel chip but I'll try your suggestion anyway - thanks

2D is all you need to play videos. It's not completely useless hardware. Get a $20 USB SDR dongle and have yourself a radio.