Question regarding flow of video drivers.

[zb21]

Some background information; I had several Mint 18.3 systems that ran well but I wanted to install Mint 19. To make a long story short, one system with an nvidia card seemed to work ok with a new install of 19 x64 Cinnamon but sometimes new windows would be scrambled. I then installed Mint 19x64 Xfce and it was more solid, but it too would sometimes scramble windows and rarely the entire screen.

The Mint 19 x32 Cinnamon cd didn't work at all on an older Toshiba Satellite with an Intel video card. Mint 19 32 XFCE mostly works, but it too sometimes scrambles new windows.

The question: Is the flow of video drivers within Mint from Ubuntu down the line so that all Ubuntu derivatives would have the same problems on this hardware? Or is the flow such that the video drivers of most or all new distros would have this problem? Thanks for any visibility you can provide.

[xenopeek]

Linux Mint 19 uses the Linux kernel and graphics stack from Ubuntu 18.04. So yeah, likely issues you're having would carry over to other Ubuntu 18.04 derivatives.

[Pjotr]

Please generate an overview of your system like this:
- Launch a terminal window (this is how to launch a terminal window);
- make the terminal window full screen, to avoid chopped lines;
- Copy/paste this command into the terminal:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

(if you type: the letter F is a capital letter)

Press Enter.

Copy/paste the output in your next message.

[zb21]

@pjotr

This is the AMD x64 which is having trouble.

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inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: oz-sky Kernel: 4.15.0-24-generic x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 7.3.0 Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 (Gtk 2.24.31)
           Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine:   Device: desktop Mobo: Gigabyte model: M68M-S2P v: x.x serial: N/A BIOS: Award v: F1 date: 11/18/2009
CPU:       Triple core AMD Athlon II X3 460 (-MCP-) arch: K10 rev.3 cache: 1536 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 20493
           clock speeds: max: 3400 MHz 1: 800 MHz 2: 800 MHz 3: 2700 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a] bus-ID: 00:0d.0
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 ) drivers: nouveau (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1280x768@59.87hz
           OpenGL: renderer: NV4C version: 2.1 Mesa 18.0.5 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card NVIDIA MCP61 High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:05.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-24-generic
Network:   Card-1: NVIDIA MCP61 Ethernet driver: forcedeth port: ec00 bus-ID: 00:07.0
           IF: enp0s7 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Ralink RT5370 Wireless Adapter driver: rt2800usb v: 2.3.0 usb-ID: 001-004
           IF: wlx7cdd90d5c8f8 state: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 300.1GB (15.0% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST3300620A size: 300.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 24G used: 18G (79%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-2: /home size: 247G used: 21G (9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 4.23GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 34.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 180 Uptime: 15 min Memory: 1403.4/3881.4MB Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.3.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.191) inxi: 2.3.56 

Below is the information from theToshiba Satellite which didn't work with the live LM 19 Cinnamon disk and has intermittent problems with LM19 XFCE. It is a Celeron M processor so I did try force PAE at boot but that didn't help. What I have found out since my original post is that if I boot the live disk in compatibility mode it then reports no video hardware acceleration and everything works and it is solid.

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inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: mint Kernel: 4.15.0-20-generic i686 bits: 32 gcc: 7.3.0
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.8.6 (Gtk 3.22.30-1ubuntu1)
           Distro: Linux Mint 19 Tara
Machine:   Device: laptop System: TOSHIBA product: Satellite L35 v: PSL33U-02601W serial: N/A
           Mobo: TOSHIBA model: Satellite L35 serial: N/A
           BIOS: TOSHIBA v: V1.30 date: 09/12/2006
Battery    BAT1: charge: 7.8 Wh 100.0% condition: 7.8/32.4 Wh (24%)
           model: TOSHIBA PA3450U-1BRS status: Charging
CPU:       Single core Intel Celeron M 420 (-UP-) 
           arch: Yonah rev.8 cache: 1024 KB
           flags: (nx pae sse sse2 sse3) bmips: 3200 speed: 1600 MHz (max)
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RC410M [Mobility Radeon Xpress 200M]
           bus-ID: 01:05.0
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 )
           drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1280x800@59.98hz
           OpenGL: renderer: ATI RC410
           version: 2.1 Mesa 18.0.0-rc5 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] IXP SB4x0 High Def. Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.15.0-20-generic
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
           driver: 8139too v: 0.9.28 port: a000 bus-ID: 09:02.0
           IF: enp9s2 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR2413/AR2414 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5005G(S) 802.11bg]
           driver: ath5k bus-ID: 09:04.0
           IF: wlp9s4 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 60.0GB (4.5% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: TOSHIBA_MK6034GS size: 60.0GB temp: 42C
Partition: ID-1: / size: 689M used: 77M (12%) fs: overlay dev: N/A
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.82GB used: 0.00GB (0%)
           fs: swap dev: /dev/sda6
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 74.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 149 Uptime: 5 min Memory: 307.0/1376.1MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 7.3.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.191) inxi: 2.3.56 

Lastly, there seems to be some difference with regard to how video is handled between LM19x32 Cinnamon and XFCE vs Xubuntu 18.04 because Xubuntu 18.04 works and is solid. Does this inference seem accurate or possible?

I'm a huge Cinnamon fan since Gnome went to v3.

[zb21]

Linux Mint 19 uses the Linux kernel and graphics stack from Ubuntu 18.04. So yeah, likely issues you're having would carry over to other Ubuntu 18.04 derivatives.

Thank you, xenopeek. I have since found out that there is some kind of difference between LM Mint 19 x32 Cinnamon and XFCE vs Xubuntu 18.04 because Xubuntu 18.04 works on the Toshiba Satellite and is solid. There are additional details in the reply to pjotr.

I like Cinnamon a lot and since I'm kind of lazy I didn't want to start blindly downloading distros to see if they worked.

Thanks, again.

[zb21]

I don't think I've posted this before but I found that LMDE 3 works on all my systems, solid as a rock. As a consequence of that I gave Mint 19 Cinnamon another go on one x64 system without any better results. So that led me to tinker with the hardware a little and it seems that by running solely on an ssd drive and removing the ide drive which was used for storage and disabling the ide interfaces in the bios it too is now solid as a rock with Mint 19.

The motherboard is hybrid, both ide and sata. It is a Gigabyte model: M68M-S2P v: x.x serial: N/A BIOS: Award v: F1 date: 11/18/2009.

Happy to be mainlining again.

[Hoser Rob]

It basically has to do with the kernel, driver, and xorg versions. So it's not a Mint or Ubuntu specific issue, it affects all Linux distros. Go to the Gentoo forum and see how much their users ... who are very knowledgeable, you need to be if using Gentoo ... are juggling their kernel versions.

However, Ubuntu solutions are the first place to look if you can't find any in Mint support sites. But you need to have your versions, kernels etc straight. You don't want to blindly cut and paste things from the first site you find.

[zb21]

It basically has to do with the kernel, driver, and xorg versions. So it's not a Mint or Ubuntu specific issue, it affects all Linux distros. Go to the Gentoo forum and see how much their users ... who are very knowledgeable, you need to be if using Gentoo ... are juggling their kernel versions.

However, Ubuntu solutions are the first place to look if you can't find any in Mint support sites. But you need to have your versions, kernels etc straight. You don't want to blindly cut and paste things from the first site you find.

Thank you for the information, Hoser Rob. Now that you meniton it that makes sense of the same systems working well with Linux Mint since Mint 13 Cinnamon through Mint 18 Cinnamon but not with 19.

Back in the dark ages, early 90s, in the environment I was working in compiling a kernel during install was SOP with Slackware. Maybe it is feasible for those who aren't going to upgrade their hardware anytime soon to learn the latest procedure for compiling a kernel and just stick with it?

[Hoser Rob]

... Back in the dark ages, early 90s, in the environment I was working in compiling a kernel during install was SOP with Slackware. Maybe it is feasible for those who aren't going to upgrade their hardware anytime soon to learn the latest procedure for compiling a kernel and just stick with it?

Gentoo is like those days. Not only do you have to compile and build the entire OS you also have to install all your app software and do all updates the same way too. Gentoo is very good, though ... Android and many embedded systems are built using it.