unity_support_test chooses software, should use hardware driver

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄]

Running Ubuntu latest quantal packages in VirtualBox under Precise.
Desktop flickers like mad which appears to be bug 1021104
However it seems that we're using llvmpipe when we should be using the virtualbox-guest-x11 driver. As a result performance in a VM is painful, when it should be pretty good.

alan@quantali386:~$ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 0x300)
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.4

Not software rendered: no
Not blacklisted: yes
GLX fbconfig: yes
GLX texture from pixmap: yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes
GL vertex program: yes
GL fragment program: yes
GL vertex buffer object: yes
GL framebuffer object: yes
GL version is 1.4+: yes

Unity 3D supported: no
alan@quantali386:~$

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: unity 6.2.0-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-11.11-generic 3.5.2
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-11-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.5.1-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Aug 22 19:42:25 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Alpha i386 (20120724.2)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Alan Bell (alanbell)]

yes, flickers like crazy for me, the only way I could use the installer was by starting orca and navigating ubiquity with the keyboard. I installed virtualbox-ose-guest-x11 and it then changes the screen size on reboot and supports resizing, but flickers madly and everything is unuseable

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

popey,
The graphics driver in use is not something Unity/Nux gets to choose. It's up to what you have installed already. Please check /var/log/Xorg.0.log and the output of glxinfo to see what driver is active.

alanbell,
The flickering is bug 1021104.

popey, alanbell,
In both your cases it seems you have the LLVMpipe driver active, not the VirtualBox driver. Please be aware that when you get the virtualbox guest driver working again, it has a severe bug with the latest compiz: bug 1030891

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

I'm going to mark this a duplicate of bug 1039157 which seems to have more information about how to fix broken 3D in VirtualBox. The patch in comment 33 has also been forwarded to Debian.