desktop effects gone after upgrade to Maverick

Simon Bridge · 11-19-2010, 09:19 PM

$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)

Used to have desktop effects (10.04), now I don't (10.10) - upgraded, via update manager, yesterday (see date).

Checked - chipset is not on compiz blacklist. Is using i915 driver...

$ lsmod | grep video
video 18712 1 i915
output 1883 1 video

$ lsmod | grep i915
i915 291004 2
drm_kms_helper 30200 1 i915
drm 168054 2 i915,drm_kms_helper
intel_agp 26360 2 i915
i2c_algo_bit 5168 1 i915
video 18712 1 i915

$ dmesg | grep drm
[ 24.373104] [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
[ 24.627127] [drm] set up 7M of stolen space
[ 25.100789] [drm] initialized overlay support
[ 26.545217] fb0: inteldrmfb frame buffer device
[ 26.545219] drm: registered panic notifier
[ 26.545500] [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20080730 for 0000:00:02.0 on minor 0

$ grep -i "Direct rendering" /var/log/Xorg.0.log
-- does not return anything

[ 28.314] (II) FBDEV(0): Creating default Display subsection in Screen section
"Default Screen Section" for depth/fbbpp 24/32
[ 28.620] (EE) FBDEV(0): FBIOPUTCMAP: Invalid argument
...... lots and lots of this - followed by:
[ 28.626] (EE) FBDEV(0): FBIOPUTCMAP: Invalid argument
[ 28.626] (EE) FBDEV(0): FBIOPUTCMAP: Invalid argument
[ 28.653] (II) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI2 capable
[ 28.653] (II) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI capable

Recall - under 10.4, desktop effects were enabled prior to upgrade.
Possibly due to fbdev stuff, but don't know where to look.
http://www.mail-archive.com/ubuntu-x.../msg00516.html
... this is the only major change I can think of here.

re: http://forum.compiz.org/viewtopic.ph...11944&start=10
... compiz cannot work with fbdev ... but I see lsmod reporting that i915 is in use and i915.modeset=1 is on the kernel line.

[ 28.269] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-22-generic root=UUID=909ecd8f-e404-46dd-8f92-3f86149fbfcd ro i915.modeset=1 quiet splash

Don't know where to look next.

There are a large number of threads in different forums concerning this; nothing coherent discovered.

Kenny_Strawn · 11-20-2010, 09:41 PM

Did you try simply re-enabling them using GNOME Appearance Preferences? Sometimes upgrades simply nuke your custom settings.

And if not, have you tried reconfiguring X?

Code:

sudo Xorg -configure
sudo cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart

Now log back in and you should be back where you were.

Simon Bridge · 11-20-2010, 10:56 PM

After the upgrade, there were no desktop effects. I went right to GNOME Appearance Preferences and reselected the advanced desktop effects. After a bit the dialog told me that it could not set them.

Code:

$ sudo Xorg -configure
[sudo] password: 

Fatal server error:
Server is already active for display 0

Obviously I have to switch X off first.

Simon Bridge · 11-21-2010, 06:07 PM

Wow - things have changed since I last had to do anything at this level...
$ sudo service gdm stop
so, anyway - sudo Xorg -configure had no effect, as expected.
next suggestion please...

[edit]
note: a clean install to identical HW also has this problem. So - unlikely to be an upgrade vs clean install issue. It looks like this is how Ubuntu is set up these days.

butbutbut: promising lead:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1601310
... and found a bug report:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...8?comments=all

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...ostcount=2%20_

Quote:

The Compiz PPA package for Maverick is experimental and shouldn't be used for now. You can fix this:

Code:

$ sudo ppa-purge ppa:compiz/ppa
PPA to be removed: compiz ppa
Warning:  Could not find package list for PPA: compiz ppa

so it looks like I am not using compiz ppa.