
Summary: There is some strange issue with how fonts and sometimes graphics are rendered in that they leave strange lines or having missing pixels.
Processor: Intel® Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2180 @ 2.00GHz x 2
Graphics: Intel® 945G x86/MMX/SSE2
Driver: i915
32-bit
Background: Around the first of September I read that the newer Ubuntu distributions had full disk encryption. I was using Ubuntu 10.04 (Gnome) and decided to back up my files, wipe the drive and install the newest version. The new interface was completely foreign to me and was impossible to navigate with any productivity so after several hours I wiped again and installed Ubuntu KDE.
The interface was much better but I noticed a strange font problem that no solution was found for in either the Ubuntu or Kubuntu forums. I had heard of Mint and decided to burn an install disk and preview it. To my surprise the font issue was also a problem on Mint, but I liked the interface so much that I backed up again and installed it and have been using it now for a week or so. Mint runs much faster than Kubuntu so I plan to stick with it, hopefully full disk encryption is adopted soon, that would make it perfect.
Things I have tried (some on Kubuntu): changing fonts, changing resolution, installing ttf-mscorefonts
I noticed when taking a screenshot that the issue vanished on the firefox window I had open, it seems so because screenshots refresh the screen, so perhaps that might give a hint to the problem. I see no option anywhere on Mint to alter the refresh rate but I did on Kubuntu and nothing changed. Putting “Hinting” at full seemed to help a bit but not solve it. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Note that this was not a problem when I was using Ubuntu 10.04 so perhaps something has changed since then with the Linux kernel that would have issues with my graphics?


