Cinnamon 1.6.7 and desktop font background

[ZenN00b]

I have been searching the form and google for information on font background color with Cinnamon. Although I have found reference to it, none of the notes, articles, or posts have been able to solve my issue.

I have upgraded (fresh install) from Mint 9 to Mint 13. I have found that the background color of my desktop fonts (text under the desktop icons) is set to transparent and the font color is set to black. Nothing I do can effect these colors. Modifying css did nothing, BTW. This forces me to have a light colored background to see anything.

I have other installs of Mint 13 (desktop and laptp) that do not have this issue. How can I set the font background color to something light so that I may have my old dark wallpapers back?

I want to keep 13 for the LTS, so I am steering clear of 14

[d00med]

Font background color? Desktop fonts in Cinnamon don't normally have a background. Is it the same with every theme you've tried? If so, perhaps it's a graphics driver glitch? What card do you have?

[ZenN00b]

I think I found something. My rig uses the Intel Q35 chipset (Intel 82Q35). It seems there's a confirmed bug in the generi driver for that chip. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/931122

So there's that. I actually installed WindowMaker and it seems to be working. I think I may drop $20 on a video card and see if I can get Cinnamon working.

[d00med]

This is a sort of random suggestion, but perhaps try a new kernel version? If you have problems with it, you can reboot while holding down the shift key, and select your current kernel in the Grub menu, and you could then remove the updated kernel with this command.

[catweazel]

This is a sort of random suggestion, but perhaps try a new kernel version?

That's just absolutely crazy advice. If the poster has anything installed that relies on dkms then you've just guaranteed a major system breakage.

Good grief.

[d00med]

This is a sort of random suggestion, but perhaps try a new kernel version?

That's just absolutely crazy advice. If the poster has anything installed that relies on dkms then you've just guaranteed a major system breakage.

Good grief.

On a fresh install of Mint 13 Cinnamon? Had enough reefer?

[ZenN00b]

Well since it's a clean install, I doubt it would break anything. Though I definately would have thought twice if I had anything installed. And the reasoning was pretty sound, try to find a kernel with a newer driver. There wasnt a real need to preserve anything so recompiling the kernel just to get the built in video driver working seemed like a pain.

That being said, I installed the latest driver and it didnt work. so now I was thinking of buying a cheap card, maybe downloading a different LiveCD distro or PC-BSD. I do not want to go back to LM 9 LTS and old Gnome...it's at end of life. In the mean time I have the choice of trying different desktop environments maybe? KDE or XFCE? WindowMaker is kinda fun as it was one of the first one's I ever used and it seems to be a revived project (New update released in 2013!).

I've been using LM13 on my laptop for work and am not giving up on Cinnamon (I LOVE it), but I can not escape the fact that I have an old and really cheap graphics chip that just isn't in the generic kernel's support path. Am I wrong?

[catweazel]

On a fresh install of Mint 13 Cinnamon?

Just hope the poster never installs anything that uses dkms.

[ZenN00b]

FYI, I restored the original kernel (3.2.0-23-generic) and all is right with the world...well, save the font issue.

[catweazel]

FYI, I restored the original kernel (3.2.0-23-generic) and all is right with the world...well, save the font issue.

Real meaning: It broke!

[ZenN00b]

What if I were to install LMDE with an older kernel that HAD the generic Intel drivers that worked properly, then update the system and not update the kernel? Or is there some way to get the old driver into the newer kernel by compiling it myself? Or maybe the functions called on in Cinnamon it never worked at all and I just didn't notice because LM 9 was Gnome based and this was my first Cinnamon install with this graphics chip? Has anyone ever gotten Cinnamon 1.6.7 to work with the Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller (Intel 82Q35)?