I have had trouble getting the desktop effects to work, loosing X11 settings and resuling in confusion.
I now have feisty 7.04 and the Compiz 1.0.3.6 progs are showing as installed in Synaptic.

How do I know if I have the correct drivers installed? When I tried to
get Compiz effects working I got 'wobbly windows' ok, then lost my mouse
controls (usb wireless), then when I tried cube effects got a total meltdown. All this
took a novice a while to research and repair.
Have I missed something critical, what should I backup before I try again?
Should I install the nVidia drivers from nVidia or leave the Ubuntu version as is?

This is my set up:-

Processor AMD Athlon XP 3200, Nvidia GeForce4 MX4000 128MBt

linux-restricted-modules-2.6.20-16-generic, non-free Linux 2.6.20 modules on x86/x86_64

nvidia-glx

NVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x/X.Org driver

Any comments welcome as I would like to try the latest desktop effects.

Me personally, I would try the actual drivers from the nvidia site and see if that helps.

Thank you, is it necessary to remove the installed drives first or can I just load the new software on top?

The way I always do it is Then just do the same thing again without the --uninstall switch to install it.

I am not certain of the version numbers you quote, and I can't see anything similar in 'hardware infomation' but if I play safe and use 'Synaptic' to do the same thing should I remove nvidia-glx and nvidia-kernal-common which are the only installed nvidia files? Can this be done while I am running the desktop OK? Your help is appreciated.

You may have to use Synaptic or something to remove everything nvidia, then you have to go to the Nvidia site and grab the drivers, here. You might want to get the driver first.

Fine business, just about ready to go. I have the recent drivers -1.0.9755 on DVD or 1.0-9631 on the web site to install, but would appreciate a check the instruction './NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9639-pkg1.run --uninstall' to make certain the right driver version goes.

I found this:
sudo nvidia-settings gave me this info:
NVIDIA Driver Version:1.0-9631

so I guess that is the version I should uninstall. and the install either of the later ones.

Hopefully I don't have to worry about the matching kernel part, is this included in the driver file? Strange that Update manager does not get the latest drivers? Thanks for your extreme patience!

You actually should be able to just do and it should uninstall the old one and install the new one. I just use the --uninstall switch to make sure it does what I want. Maybe it's just me, but it seems cleaner.

I did a lot of reading in the nVidia download, could not understand much of it, (how to get out of X ?) and eventually bit the bullet.

Using 'sudo sh NVIDIA-.......9639-pkg1.run'
and a very helpful screen came up with more dyor warnings about running X etc, so I rebooted into 'recovery mode' to get a command prompt and ran it from there. It suggested I should be in run level 3 but I did not know where that was. I could not get out of the setup so I answered no to a few more questions but still it would not kick me out, all I could accept was OK. It seemed to loads ok and lo and behold my desktop came back. So all seemed well until I switched on 'Desktop Effects' and the same problem as before with the mouse buttons not responding properly. This time I discover that CNTL + left button works and SHIFT + left button works and the scroll wheel does all sorts of zooming on it own.

I followed a tutorial on Compiz with a couple more configuration commands but have not found the cube effects yet or any help on Ubuntu site or here on how to run them but I must say that the 'Wobbly windows' are not worth the crazy mouse effects.

Is there any way I can recover my mouse or maybe reinstall the mouse drivers?


P.S I have just found this page which should be helpful for setting up: http://www.compiz.org/NVidia

P.P.S Just found CNTL + ALT + Mouse rotates the cube