Strange GUI fonts problem, some text isnt showing

[CoskiBukowski]

Hi!
My girlfriend installed Mint Felicia XFCE some time ago. Everything was OK, but then we found in some programs (both native and wine) but not all, some of the fonts of the GUI (menu, buttons, etc) was missing, but not completely, like cut off, and when you click on a button or a menu entry, you can see a sort of shadow, or the text for just a milisecond...
I tried changing the font for the gui in the control center.
I tried installing new fonts...
and i googled a lot but couldnt find any info...

Heres how winecfg looks:

Notice how you can see the shadow text in the grayed buttons

And Opera, for example (NOT emulated in wine, native..)


A menu in Amarok:


Do you have any clue?
(and, am i posting in the right place?)

Thanks in advance!

[Husse]

This can actually be a bad graphics driver
What graphics card and what driver do you use?
you could run
lspci -v
to find out and post the section about VGA
(using grep is no good idea here)
You might be able to upgrade your driver

[vicio]

I'm the girlfriend

Here is the output of the command:

Code: Select all

ntz@bicha ~ $ sudo lspci -v
[sudo] password for ntz:   
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8378 [KM400/A] Chipset Host Bridge                                                           
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 3205                   
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 8           
        Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]         
        Capabilities: [80] AGP version 3.5                           
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2                 
        Kernel driver in use: agpgart-via                             
        Kernel modules: via-agp                                       

00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237/VX700 PCI Bridge
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0       
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
        Memory behind bridge: dde00000-dfefffff                     
        Prefetchable memory behind bridge: cdc00000-ddcfffff       
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2               
        Kernel modules: shpchp                                     

00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)                                                   
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 3038                   
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 21         
        I/O ports at e400 [size=32]                                   
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2                 
        Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd                               
        Kernel modules: uhci-hcd                                     

00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)                                                   
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 3038                   
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 21         
        I/O ports at e800 [size=32]                                   
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2                 
        Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd                               
        Kernel modules: uhci-hcd                                     

00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 80)                                                   
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 3038                   
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 21         
        I/O ports at ec00 [size=32]                                   
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2                 
        Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd                               
        Kernel modules: uhci-hcd                                     

00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82) (prog-if 20)                                                               
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 3104                   
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 21         
        Memory at dfffff00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]     
        Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2                 
        Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd                               
        Kernel modules: ehci-hcd                                     

00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 3177         
        Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2       
        Kernel modules: via-ircc, i2c-viapro                 

00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])                                                                   
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 0571                   
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 255         
        [virtual] Memory at 000001f0 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8]                                                                   
        [virtual] Memory at 000003f0 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [size=1]                                                                   
        [virtual] Memory at 00000170 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8]                                                                   
        [virtual] Memory at 00000370 (type 3, non-prefetchable) [size=1]                                                                   
        I/O ports at fc00 [size=16]                                   
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2                 
        Kernel driver in use: pata_via                               
        Kernel modules: pata_via                                     

00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)                               
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 1617                   
        Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 22                                 
        I/O ports at e000 [size=256]                                 
        Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2                 
        Kernel driver in use: VIA 82xx Audio                         
        Kernel modules: snd-via82xx                                   

00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 74)                                                             
        Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 3065                   
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 23         
        I/O ports at dc00 [size=256]                                 
        Memory at dffffe00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]     
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2                 
        Kernel driver in use: via-rhine                               
        Kernel modules: via-rhine

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX 440] (rev a3)
        Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 248, IRQ 16
        Memory at de000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
        Memory at ddc80000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=512K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at dfee0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [44] AGP version 2.0
        Kernel driver in use: nvidia
        Kernel modules: nvidia, nvidiafb, rivafb


I can watch videos, like movies, series, etc. I havent tried any 3d game yet. I have compiz running (i will try to disable compiz and see what happens, will post my results here). the gears test in the console (something like glxgears i think) works fine in my opinion:

Code: Select all

ntz@bicha ~ $ glxgears
4017 frames in 5.0 seconds = 803.225 FPS
4004 frames in 5.0 seconds = 800.795 FPS
4025 frames in 5.0 seconds = 804.939 FPS
^C
ntz@bicha ~ $


Thanks you.

[Husse]

GeForce4 MX 440 is an old card and it needs a legacy driver
It is possible to install a legacy driver with envy - you should have the 96xx version
If my memory serves me right envy is in the menu in Felicia XFCE - else start it from the terminal envyng -t
If you choose to install remove the old driver first
You have the nvidia proprietary driver, so it's just a question of which version
I have seen things like this happen many times due to faulty/wrong graphics drivers (in Win as in Linux)

[vicio]

OK, so i opened envy, and i uninstalled my previous driver. It asked me to reboot, so i did. When it finished, i was with no propietary drivers, and i saw the text just fine.
Then, i installed the propietary driver you told me (and i think it was the one i had before). and when i loged back in, again, no text. So, i disabled compiz, and thats what i got:


BUT!! now amarok, opera and the other native programs are displayed fine!

I googled the "scrambled fonts in wine" and everybody advice to install core fonts, which i did right when i installed mint, and i did again right now, using winetricks this time, but no luck..

ok, at least i can use amarok now

Oh! one more thing: if i change the DPI in winecfg to make the text "bigger", the text starts to display fine, but huge..

Thanks again!

[vicio]

Some news:

I found this: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s ... tion/51805

and now wine (winecfg, picasa, etc) works fine, both with compiz active and disabled.

But now, when i activate compiz, opera and amarok have the same behaviour as the 1st post

Im going crazy xD

[Husse]

Compiz is a problem....
It's not at all uncommon that you have to turn off Compiz to watch video and so on

[sargon3]

I seem to recall something like this from v4 RC days...

O.K. I remember now, the solution was to completely unload the nv96x driver, disable Envy, and reload the nv96x driver/nv panel using synaptic with 'restricted' and 'consider recommended as dependency' on. The nv panel bin has to be run as root or any changes will not be saved at session close.

I think everyone pretty much gave up on Envy.

Ditto Husse on Compiz; endless problems and resource-hungry besides. Do without it if you can, xfce's own compositor is pretty decent.

Luck!

[CoskiBukowski]

THANKS!

Next time i'm on my GF's house ill try.

Thanks, see ya.