I recently installed Ubuntu 8.04 on my PC. Had got the CD shipped from Netherlands. Got here quicker than I expected! Anyway, I’m like CompizFusion on my PC, it was one of the chief things that attracted me to Linux.
So, the first thing I tried to do when I got Ubuntu up and running (really, you don’t need to do much, actually!), was enable Desktop Effects. CompizFusion has been further expanded and integrated into Ubuntu, as compared to earlier versions. But when I tried to enable the effects, it gave a very simple message.
Desktop Effects couldn’t be enabled.
OK
Not like Windows, which would give something like..
Error 0×428563 :: Dektop Effects initialisation failed. Module GFX-core terminated in an unexpected manner. Last output – Unable to interface with nv169.21-6600gt. Writing 64KB crash dump to C:WINDOWSsystem32logscrashlogsdsktpxf.txt. Contact your system administrator for further help.
Send Error Report Details Cancel
Anyway, I had experienced a similar prooblem on my old PC, when I couldn’t enable Compiz. In that case, it was because there were no proper 3D drivers for the integrated graphics chip. So, I proceeded to enable the nVidia drivers.
I open Synaptic (to know more about Synaptic, click here), and search for nvidia. It turns up a lost of results, and I find that 3 of them are main drivers: nvidia-glx-legacy, nvidia-glx and nvidia-glx-new, with the first one being for older cards, second one for not so old cards, and the last one for the new cards. So, I tried installing nvidia-glx, and everything went smooth, except that it didn’t get enabled. Installed but not enabled. Now, not knowing how to edit xorg.conf myself, I tried going to System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers, which is where you can enable Restricted Drivers. Restricted Drivers are those which aren’t open source, and thus, may or may not be compatible with all PCs and configurations. But I’d found nVidia restricted drivers pretty OK, and so I enabled that, thinking it would solve my problems.
Upon enabling it, Synaptic began downloading nvidia-glx-new. No probs, installed, restarted, and found that the resolution at 1024×768, whereas my monitor supported resolutions upto 1280×1024. I should note that while Ubuntu is loading the resolution is 1280×1024, but it later goes to 1024×768. So, I opened System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution and found that the list of resolutions didn’t have anything after 1024×768. Infact, the original generic driver which was working earlier, was giving me the resolutions I wanted! But not the one specifically designed for my 6600GT. But the generic driver didn’t support hardware acceleration, which is why I wanted to install the restricted drivers in the first place!
So, after a lot of uninstallation and installation, I was stumpted. But the tech nut in me, doesn’t like stumpted. He’s likely to blow up his PC, if that’s what it takes to fix it! Nothing that drastic required this time. I opened Synaptic again. Searched for nvidia and found a package called nvidia-settings. My instincts told me this was what I was looking for. It was, After installing, I could access this control panel for my 6600GT, which was not unlike the control panel for nVidia graphics cards in older driver versions. So, there I could set the resolution to 1280×1024.
But after resarting, the resolution was still 1024×768. I opened the Control Panel again, and there was a button, Save to X Configuration File. Well, I clicked, and it said that it couldn’t save the file. Then I realised that, like with many changes made to system files, this one also required administrative priveleges, so in the Terminal, I typed:
sudo nvidia-settings
and all was well… Clicked on the Save to X Configuration File after changing the resolution and it was OK. Just one thing. When Ubuntu boots up, for about half-a-second, the nVidia logo appears full-screen.
It’s kinda nice, cause it reminds me I have a 6600GT under the hood, although it’s not great anymore.