Bad weird menus

[bmcilw1]

My dad has installed Linux Mint 12 64 bit as a virtual machine inside Windows 7 64 bit. His desktops/menus are all weird. His default menu is close to Gnome 2, but it defiantly is not that environment. I've tried downloading the Cinnamon desktop but it just uses the same menu experience as all others. The only menu that seems to work as itself and not something else is the MATE menu. It seems that the LXDE menu works also.

What is going on here?

Also: It seems that when he clicks "install" for a package in the Software Manager (apparently) nothing happens. There is no "Ongoing actions" etc. He reboots or closes the Manager and the package is there, but it displayed nothing.

How can I fix these issues? Are these problems related? Is it just VMware?

As a side note (I don't know if this has anything to do with it) the virtual machine option is Ubuntu 64 bit as there is no "Linux Mint 12 64 bit" option. I also checked that the "3d graphics accelerator" option was checked.

Thanks for any support.

[bmcilw1]

The problem in this forum seems to be very similar to my own: missing menu and panels in Mint 12

After reading through this blog I'm leaning towards this all being a 64 bit issue tied to certain graphics cards.

[bmcilw1]

After a bit of digging around I found what to look for. It is (at least, and probably at most) a graphics card issue.

My dad has a NVIDIA Quadro FX 2800M graphics card. I have an Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Inter. Graph. Contrl. Dell Device 0233.

Because of this difference in graphics cards my stuff works, his runs some crazy *other* menu.

This is a bug. The question is this: can it be fixed on the Linux side, or is this a problem with a stinky graphics card that doesn't support 3D or something?

[Oscar799]

Moved here by moderator

[manueld]

Even when you check "3d graphics accelerator", Linux Mint (or Ubuntu) doesn't recognize the acceleration adapter from VMWare or Virtualbox as 3D graphics card and thus only the 2d modes are enabled (i had the same problems). The MATE desktop should work.

[bmcilw1]

Yep, MATE works, as it's 2D