First things first, sorry for posting on linuxquestions.org rather than Ubuntu forums. On the actual Ubuntu forums theres a lack of people responding, so you never get any questions answered over there. On my last question I posted the same thing verbatim on both this site and theirs and I had 3 responses (with more questions in between) here before I had 1 there.


Nextly, my Ubuntu looks choppy. Its on the middle UI appearance setting. Many times I've noticed the options in the top right of a window cause the window frame to change colors (the min/max and close buttons.) Movement looks choppy when I drag a windows around.


My Windows experience makes me think this is a driver issue. My card is a geForce 7950. I've tried using the different drivers that Ubuntu automatically picks up to fix the problem but it is still there.

Another problem that I believe to be related is that my firefox scrolls poorly. Using the mousewheel mostly causes the browser to lag and move down in jumps rather than smoothly.


Any suggestions?

I too noticed some chop appear in ubuntu 8.10. This chop was not around <8.10. While I don't consider the chop enough of an issue to care, it is aggravating that from time to time I get some glitchyness. It seems to be getting better (I think it occurred more often when I first stepped up to 8.10). Because this chop wasn't around before and appears to be getting better I've assumed it's a known issue, and I'm wondering if it's more related to an updated compiz than driver.... but then I haven't even cared enough to check that 8.10 stacks an updated compiz.

My card: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8600M GS

I realize this reply means little to you because I obviously care less about the chop than you (sorry!). However, I hope you find some vindication that your problem is probably real, software related, and I assume it's something within the 8.10 stack.

so...if I had 8.04 the problem wouldn't be there?

Which nvidia driver are you using? For your card you should be using nvidia-glx-177.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/nvidia-glx-177
Run in terminal:
This will output a list of nvidia-glx drivers. A "i" next to the driver name means the driver is installed. A "p" next to the driver name means the driver is not on your system. If you are using nvidia-glx-173, remove that and install nvidia-glx-177.

Also check your xorg.conf if you have one. The xorg that ships with Ubuntu 8.10 does not even use a xorg.conf, but if you installed the nvidia driver I think the nvidia installer would create one. Anyway, check in the "device" section and make sure the driver is "nvidia".

Also, check if direct rendering is enabled:
If it reports "no" then direct rendering is not enabled.

I did not have chop in 8.04. When I stepped up to 8.10, I had chop. I haven't done anything special with drivers/otherwise, but in the last couple days I haven't seen the chop anymore. I don't pay much attention to the updates I apply.

Not very helpful, I know. What I'm trying to say is: are you up-to-date?

I am using the v177 driver (cheers tom). System->Administration->Hardware Drivers would be the ubuntu way to swap to proprietary driver.

my xorg.conf file says that the system is using Nvidia as the driver. When I type

bash-3.1$ glxinfo | grep -i direct

I get

bash: bash-3.1$: command not found
so no dice on that. and yes, i'm using the 177 driver.