<SOLVED> samsung laptop and dual graphics (intel+amd)

[andformore]

So I just bought a Samsung Series 7 chronos laptop today, and I put Linux Mint on it immediately. I was following the recommendations here: http://openideals.org/2012/04/15/tuning-ubuntu-on-samsung-series-7-laptop/ which say to install a proprietary video driver and to install samsung-tools and samsung-laptop from a personal repository using the following code:

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$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:voria/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install samsung-tools
$ sudo apt-get install samsung-laptop
$ sudo reboot


The first time I did that, it messed up a bunch of stuff from doing apt-get upgrade. Based on the googling i did, I needed to re-install the OS so that's what i did. The second time i was more careful. First I did apt-get update, then I added the repo, then I did update again. I skipped the upgrade and then installed the two programs and rebooted. When it came back, my nice UI was gone and replaced with a traditional ubuntu one. How can I get the nice one back? The problem is mostly the start menu. Screenshot is here:
http://i.imgur.com/qMs0W.png

I want to know how to fix the menu, but also why update and upgrade is causing so many problems. I plan to use this as my main OS but if I cant do apt-get update without causing an issue, then maybe i need to move back to ubuntu. Can you guys help me fix the problem and explain what I need to do in the future for this not to happen?

[xenopeek]

The screenshot you share is showing fallback mode. Cinnamon needs 3D acceleration to work, and if your graphics card driver doesn't support that it goes to fallback mode. Probably something in the samsung packages is installing a crippled graphics card driver. Please post the output of:

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inxi -SGx

[andformore]

Now that I think of it, I installed the samsung tools at the same time as I enabled the proprietary video card driver which helped reduce the fan noise. Maybe un-enabling it will help? Here's the output you requested:

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System:    Host: andy-samsung-linux Kernel: 3.2.0-23-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.6.3)
           Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 13 Maya
Graphics:  Card-1: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Card-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Whistler [AMD Radeon HD 6600M Series] bus-ID: 01:00.0
           X.Org: 1.11.3 drivers: intel (unloaded: vesa,fbdev) Resolution: 1600x900@60.1hz
           GLX Renderer: N/A GLX Version: N/A Direct Rendering: N/A


[xenopeek]

Graphics card problems I'm not so good at at helping with, especially with hybrid graphics when you have two different graphics cards in your computer. So I'm moving it here and have changed the title of the topic. Hopefully one of the more knowledgeable users here can help figure this out.

[andformore]

Actually you basically fixed the problem. Knowing that it was a graphics card issue helped a lot, instead of a package the samsung tools messed up. I uninstalled the proprietary driver, and my UI is working normally now! But, the fan is running like crazy. I'll try to figure out how to fix that issue. Should I make a new thread? Thanks!

[xenopeek]

You can try in the BIOS, if you can set which is the primary graphics card or possibly disable the one or the other. This may allow you to still use the AMD card, and so use the proprietary drivers that will manage the fans better.

[andformore]

Everything is fixed now!

Here is a more enlightened synopsis of the problem in case anyone has a similar one. On my Samsung Series 7, I installed a proprietary video driver through the menu (System Tools -> System Settings -> Hardware - Additional Drivers). This fixed the problem I was having with a very loud fan. But, it broke the cinnamon desktop/UI and left me with a really bad, hardly usable one. I mistakenly thought this was due to the "Linux on my Samsung Tools" I installed right before installing the driver. Thanks to Vincent I realized the video driver was the source of the issue and not the samsung tools at all. I went into the menu and disabled the problematic driver. After a reboot, this restored the marvelous Cinnamon UI (you really appreciate it after using that fallback mode for a few days), but my fan returned to being insanely loud almost all of the time. After some googling, I found this page:

http://wiki.colar.net/ubuntu_12_04_on_s ... nos_laptop

I scrolled down to the Full ATI Drivers section and ran this in the terminal:

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sudo sh /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh
sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx_* fglrx-amdcccle* fglrx-dev* xorg-driver-fglrx

cd /tmp && wget -O amd-driver-12-6-x86_64.run http://goo.gl/XBFyI
chmod +x amd-driver-12-6-x86_64.run
sudo sh amd-driver-12-6-x86_64.run

sudo aticonfig --initial -f

Then, I rebooted and now everything is perfect, I finally like my new computer! Thanks for all the help, and hopefully this will help others with their issue!