Upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10 has corrupted window frames and taskbar

[fatboab]

I upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10 this morning via the Alternate CD. I then did an apt-get upgrade as things didn't appear to have upgraded. I am now left with a desktop that looks like the following (http://www.bobarnott.com/tmp/screen.png). Short of reinstalling, how do I get these bits to render correcytly?

Cheers,

[cmetzger4]

I'm having the same issue.

I did a clean install of Kubuntu 9.10 on a Dell GX260 and my menu bar at the bottom of my screen in distorted and any window that is opened has a distorted bar at the top. Your screenshot is almost identical to what I am seeing.

I'm guessing there maybe a video driver issue, but 1) I'm a complete Linux noob so I could be way off assuming that, and 2) I can't play around with any of the settings because I can't read anything on the distorted menus.

Any insight would be appreciated.

[fatboab]

I'm guessing there maybe a video driver issue, but 1) I'm a complete Linux noob so I could be way off assuming that, and 2) I can't play around with any of the settings because I can't read anything on the distorted menus.

I'm running an old ATI card and I've confirmed that I'm running the correct driver. I did instal lthe lastest KDE via backports, but I did that on my laptop to and it upgraded fine. It's a nightmare as you can't see anything on the application launcher of quick launcher I don't know thje names of any of the apps directly to open them and see what's going on.

I'm backing everything up at the moment and will probably do a clean install...

Cheers,

[cmetzger4]

The video card in this PC is an ATI Radeon.

[fatboab]

Looks like it's something to do with the xorg.conf file. I did a clean install and it was working fine, so I copied over my xorg.conf and restarted and hay presto it started failing in the same way. config is below if anyone can tell me what I'm doing wrong...?



# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# Note that some configuration settings that could be done previously
# in this file, now are automatically configured by the server and settings
# here are ignored.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "Device"
Identifier "Radeon 7000"
Driver "radeon"
Option "Monitor-VGA-0" "Monitor A"
Option "Monitor-DVI-0" "Monitor B"
Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor A"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor B"
Option "LeftOf" "VGA-0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Dual Screen"
Monitor "Monitor A"
Device "Radeon 7000"
Subsection "Display"
Virtual 2560 1024
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "DontZap" "False"
EndSection


Cheers,

[Zhu]

Same problem here on a fresh installation of Kubuntu 9.10. Taskbar,menu,windows frames are corrupted.

I tried to change some appearance settings, such as anti-aliasing, dpi but nothing helped.

Video card: ATI Radeon Mobility M6 LY.

I'm still searching...

[Zhu]

Alright, in this thread some people got the display find again:

http://art.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1306215

They used the ATI Catalyst driver 9.10, which is fine if you're using a recent graphic card.

But ATI stopped supporting older cards (non HD) since the driver version 9.3 (Radeon Mobility in my case) and the version 9.3 doesn't work on Kubuntu 9.10.

So it's easy, if I want to run Kubuntu 9.10, I should replace my notebook... haha what a joke.
Thanks a lot ATI, I've never been a fan and preferred Nvidia but couldn't explain why.. now I know why !

[juustomuna]

I have exactly the same problem with T40 mobility radeon M7 LW 7500, R100. The problems go away if I enable the compositing (enable desktop effects) in Kubuntu 9.10.

I would like to know how to fix this for when the desktop effects are disabled though, since they make the UI run slower and I don't really need them.

[frostinide]

Yeah enabling compositing is a workaround. However, it may not be easy to do if you can't see the menus. Here is how I did it:

right click desktop -> add widgets -> application launcher menu
click the launcher menu -> settings -> system settings -> desktop -> enable desktop effects.

This seems to a bug in the ATI driver. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

[Zhu]

Well, I wish it works out, but for those with 16 MB on the graphic card and a resolution of 1400x1050, there's not a lot of free memory left to activate the Desktop Effects...

[keyser.kovacs]

Same for me with Ubuntu 9.10 working in a Compaq Evo N600c with ATI Radeon M6 card...

Extrange thing is if I enter using gnome in safe mode everything works fine in the screen but I dont have network. Does anybody knows how I can put "safe mode" as usual configuration of my screen?

Thanks!


Well, I wish it works out, but for those with 16 MB on the graphic card and a resolution of 1400x1050, there's not a lot of free memory left to activate the Desktop Effects...

[cmetzger4]

Thanks, Frostinide. Your directions worked perfectly for me.

[fatboab]

Composting is greyed out in my options... Any other ideas?

Cheers

[juustomuna]

Try fiddling with the accel methods XAA and EXA

in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Device"
Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
#Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
EndSection

This worked for me with T40 and Mobility Radeon 7500 R100