Vertical display-shifting

[Mark W. Tomlinson]

Did a fresh install of 7.04 Beta; it defaulted to 1280x1024 resolution; the upper and lower panels (whatever they're called) were not visible at one time - I had to move my mouse pointer to the extreme north or south position on my display to see either one.

My display setup consists of an nVida GeForce FX-5500-based AGP display adapter (PNY Verto, 128MB VRAM) and a ViewSonic VA1930wm monitor).

I then installed the nVidia driver (version 1.0-9755) using Add/Remove from the "Applications" menu. Following the instructions found there, I ran "sudo nvidia-glx-config enable" from a terminal window. I then logged out and restarted X (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace). Logged back in and my display was still configured for 1280x1024 and still would not show both upper & lower panels at the same time.

Then ran "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" from a terminal window, selected the nVidia driver & added the appropriate settings (see attached xorg.conf file), restarted X, then rebooted the computer - same problem - the upper & lower panels cannot be displayed at the same time.

[Mark W. Tomlinson (mark-tomlinson)]

Please see bug # 82709 for background...

[Mark W. Tomlinson (mark-tomlinson)]

This is more pertinent to bug # 82709, but I post it here for completeness...

I just tried switching back to the "nv" display driver (using "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" after booting into recover mode). The only entries I made were for the amount of video memory (131072) and the maximum/preferred resolution (1440x900). When I rebooted into GDM, I got approximately the right 2/3 of the display (the left 1/3 was black) and the same behavior - login looks normal but I get a blank screen, no gnome splash and, after c. 30 seconds, a grey/white rectangular artifact in the upper left corner of the display area.

[Mark W. Tomlinson (mark-tomlinson)]

The vertical display shifting may have been a fluke (resolution setting), I've been unable to recreate it. But the problem first documented in bug 82709 is still very much alive (for me, at least). I've updated daily and had high hopes that today's updates would fix it (new linux-restricted-* and nvidia-glx), but no. I still get the "normal" login screen but after logging in, I get just the background - no gnome splash or audio. The mouse cursor can be moved but does nothing else. Then, after approx. 30 seconds, a grey/white rectangle appears in the upper left corner. I have to to Ctrl-Alt-F1 to a console, log in again and reboot.

Please let me know what additional information I can provide that might be helpful. It's kinda frustrating, after repeated clean installs winding up with this same problem and not being able to do anything else. I'd LOVE to find out that I've been doing something stupid - but I need some feedback here.

Thanks!

[Mark W. Tomlinson (mark-tomlinson)]

This also affects bug 82709 and I will post this information there.

I did one more clean install on Saturday (4/14/07) and the problems cited above seem to have been corrected. I did nothing different - I can only assume that some component update in the interim fixed the problems I was having. As of now, it's looking pretty good.

[Sitsofe Wheeler (sitsofe)]

Mark:
If you feel the issue has been fixed/is no longer present please visit this bug in launchpad, click on Ubuntu in the yellow bar at the top and change the status to either Fix Released or Rejected.