Am I limited to MATE?

[marietta_greg]

Hi, I'd really like to check out Cinnamon, but when I attempt to use it as my DM, the screen freezes post login. Desktop rendered with icons. Menu wont work, icons are dead.

I've done a lot of confusing reading re video cards and drivers here and around other Linux forums. I did a benchmark report on my system and this is what I have in the video arena:

Display (Summary Section)
Resolution 1440x900 pixels
OpenGL Renderer ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series
X11 Vendor The X.Org Foundation

Display (Section)
Resolution 1440x900 pixels
Vendor The X.Org Foundation
Version 1.10.4

OpenGL
Vendor ATI Technologies Inc.
Renderer ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series
Version 3.3.11005 Compatibility Profile Context
Direct Rendering Yes

Now, I'm not clear how to tell if I am using the X.org generic driver for my card or the ATI driver. There are trade-offs, but generally the proprietary is better at 3D I hear.

How can I ensure I am using the proprietary driver in Cinnamon when I cannot get Cinnamon to run? In MATE I can go into Control Center and have activeated the ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX driver (NOT the post release one....it won't activate for some reason)

Can I activate it for Cinnamon without the GUI?

If you need more info on my system, please let me know.

Thanks for your help

[esteban1uy]

Did you try login in fallback mode?
At the login screen, choose "Gnome Classic" or "Gnome Classic (no effects)".

[eanfrid]

Cinnamon works fine on an older Radeon X1300Pro with the open-source driver. So I don't think your issue is related to weak hardware. You should try with an empty xorg.conf (or none). Run in a terminal and paste here the result of "inxi -G".

[marietta_greg]

Thanks to both of you for reply.

inxi -G:

Graphics: Card: ATI M880G [Mobility Radeon HD 4200]
X.Org 1.10.4 drivers fglrx unloaded: vesa,fbdev Resolution 1440x900@59.9hz
GLX Renderer ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series GLX Version 3.3.11005 - CPC

Notice that it says fglrx unloaded? My additional driver aplet shows I think that it IS loaded. So I'm confused. See shot


Yes, I can login to classic Gnome and gnome no effects. I can login also to MATE (which I thought is just Gnome 2.x, but with LM updates to that fork which Gnome org isn't maintaining anymore, right?)

[esteban1uy]

Thanks to both of you for reply.

inxi -G:

Graphics: Card: ATI M880G [Mobility Radeon HD 4200]
X.Org 1.10.4 drivers fglrx unloaded: vesa,fbdev Resolution 1440x900@59.9hz
GLX Renderer ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series GLX Version 3.3.11005 - CPC

Notice that it says fglrx unloaded? My additional driver aplet shows I think that it IS loaded. So I'm confused. See shot

What that means is that you have fglrx as driver, and vesa and fbdev are unloaded.
Let's put it this way:

Driver: fglrx
Unloaded: vesa, fbdev

So I guess you are using MATE or Gnome Classic (fallback).
Wanna do a little experiment?
Open a terminal and execute the following code:

Code: Select all

bash -c "LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 cinnamon --replace &"

See?

[marietta_greg]

Thanks for the clarification on the drivers.

What is LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 cinnamon --replace & going to do?

kind of looks like setting an environment variable (?)

If its going to set Cinnamon as my DM default....I need to be able to change that if it still freezes after login.

Or just ctrl+alt+backspace and relog with Gnome or Mate?


BTW, ianfrid suggested a blank or no xorg.conf. I don't have much in mine. I've seen much more complex examples.


Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
DefaultDepth 24
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection

[marietta_greg]

OK, executed bash -c "LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 cinnamon --replace &"

Lots of screen flashing and pixilization, then display settled down, and looked pretty good. BUT....system was frozen. In the terminal window got a lot of error messages.

Wish I could have gotten a screen shot of it, or been able to copy the text out....but all was frozen.

These are some of the most significant that I jotted down by hand . . .

js error: WARNING Anonymouse function does not always return a value

js error: WARNING file /usr/share/cinnamon/aplets/window-list@dinnamon.org/aplets.js line 377 exception 0 number 157

CLUTTER-CRITICAL clutter_actor_queue_layout CLUTTER_IS_ACTOR (self) failed.

[esteban1uy]

Well... it doesn't look very good.
With that command you were using software rendering for your Cinnamon, and in theory, avoiding the problem with the hardware rendering of your graphics card.
But if Cinnamon still freezes, even if you're using software rendering, then you're certanly limited to Mate.