I just installed Ubuntu on my desktop, which is dual boot with Windows XP. In Ubuntu, I get lines all over my screen every so often, triggered by simple tasks like opening and scrolling windows. The problem is only in Ubuntu, not Windows. Also, I tried Fedora before trying Ubuntu, and it did it in Fedora also. It seems like an obvious graphics drivers issue, but my graphics is a 128 mb shared graphics, so how would I go about fixing this?
its an integrated video, (Compaq Presario SR1575CL, right outta the box from CostCo), I don't do any gaming, so i don't have any need for anything more. the best i can find is its a SiS-something graphics... pretty much every piece of hardware on the computer is SiS-something, so i don't know which is referring to the graphics card... does that help?
Sorry you've been waiting so long for an answer. Let me give it a stab.
The best way to determine your video card is to use the lspci tool. This tool, like its name suggests, lists all items on your PCI bus. Switch to a virtual terminal (<ctrl>-<alt>-<fX>, where fX is one of your function keys f1-f6) and login. At the prompt, type <pre>lspci</pre> and hit enter. A bunch of stuff will scroll by. If there is too much to fit in the screen, use <pre>lspci|less</pre> (hit q to quit less). Look for the device labeled "Display controller" so something similar. This will tell you what the video card is. If you want more detailed information type <pre>lspci -v</pre> The "v" stands for verbose.
Once you have determined what actual the video card is, you can usually google it to find out what the proper driver and settings for X should be. If you don't want to google it, or are having trouble finding info, feel free to post back here. We'll be glad to try to help you again.
I feel really dumb, because I'm so lost when it comes to this stuff. And especially trying it in Linux, which I have very little experience with... anyways, this is the closest thing I could find to match "Display controller": 0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661FX/M661FX/M661MX/741/M741/760/M760 PCI/AGP
I google'd it, and got alot of jargon. What do I do now?
That's exactly what I was looking for. This tells us that your video adapter is an SiS 661FX. Xorg does provide an sis driver, but from what I've seen it tends to be a bit buggy. Some people have gotten it to work by setting up an appropriate modeline in their xorg.conf file. The modeline is what tells X the timing and resolution of your display. This is dependant on both your video adapter and your monitor.
If you're not particularly picky about your resolution and would be happy with 1024x768, then you can use the vesa driver instead of the sis driver. If you would like to try to get the sis driver to work, there's a tool called "gtf" (which I often confuse with "wtf", but actually stands for "get the frequency") that can help you calculate your video timings correctly.
If you can track down gtf and tell me some more details about your monitor, we can try to get a proper modeline for your configuration. If you'd be happy with 1024x768 resolution and would like to try the vesa driver instead, I can tell you how to modify your xorg.conf file manually to do so.
Don't worry about asking "newbie" questions. That's the whole reason that k-slug is here: to promote linux by helping others use it. We're happy to help.
1024x768 is the resolution I use with Windows, and may actually be the setting that I use in Linux (I'm on my laptop right now, not my Linux desktop, so I don't know for sure). Anyways, I'd be happy with trying the vesa driver for a 1024x768 resolution. How would I go about setting that up?
This is relatively easy. You need to edit the configuration file for X. In ubuntu (and many other distros), this file is /etc/X11/xorg.conf. You need to do it using sudo, since root owns this file. Use your favorite editor. Look for the section labeled <font face="monospace">Section "Device"</font>. In this section look for the <font face="monospace">Driver</font> settting. Right now, it probably says something like <font face="monospace">"sis"</font>. Change this string value to <font face="monospace">"vesa"</font> (you do need the quotes here). The other settings in this section are not terribly important. X will ignore any <font face="monospace">Option</font> settings that don't apply to the driver you are using. The <font face="monospace">Identifier</font> setting is not terribly important, but if you change it, you also need to change the <font face="monospace">Device</font> setting in the <font face="monospace">Section "Screen"</font> so it matches.
Now you just need to save the file, exit your X session (if you're in one), and restart the X server. You can restart the X server by hitting <ctrl>-<backspace> in the gui virtual console (hit <ctrl>-<alt>-<F7> first), or run sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart from any other console. If X starts up again, then your changes should be good.
OMG!!!! I love it!! Thank you so much! I didn't realize how much of a pain that was, but it's amazing to be able to use my computer now without it glitching all the time. Thanks!
No problem. Getting X running is #1 PITA for most new linux installs. Unless you have hardware that is nicely linux-compatible, you always have to work at it. I'm glad you got it working. Feel free to ask questions here any time.