Problems with visual effects

[redb]

I am having an issue with visual effects. If I try to set my laptop (hp zd8000) to use anything but simple visualizations the screen corrupts and then locks up. The same thing happens when I try to switch to another user account.
I have a ATI Mobility Radeon X600 with 256MB dedicated RAM. I don't know if this card is the problem or if it is just the way I have things set up. I recently discovered that this card was blacklisted, whatever that means.

Any answer would be appreciated.

Absolute nooob

[thtrgremlin]

That is not a really powerful card. Without hardware 3d acceleration, it is either not going to work, or it is going to be insanely slow. If you do not like metacity, there are other fun customizable Window managers out there, but my guess is that compiz / visual effects is not an option.

blacklisted means that the drivers have problems, often either because they don't work at all, too rarely, or cause major failures enough so it is worth blocking anyone from using it.

In this case I would bet that it is forced to use some kind of generic graphic driver that gives you the high resolution desktop, but stops access to any more advanced features.

Hope that helps. Sorry not better news though. Good reason to bring a Live CD with you to test a laptop before you buy it to ensure it has the features you want. some computer makers did fake cheap stuff they called 3d that just made aero work poorly on vista, but didn't have real 3d support (also known as a soft driver. typically anything with windows soft driver support in windows doesn't work in Linux for a long time, understandably. Too many wireless cards use soft drivers). Thought you might be curious.

[redb]

thtrgremlin,

Thank you for your response. I have had this laptop for a few years now. It had XP on it. I hated it. I just finally was able to install ubuntu and have it work great. Even without the effects it still beats xp hands down. I will never go back to windows of any version.

Thank you again.