Default user does not have "video" group, cannot use hardware acceleration

[Nathan Fish]

Linux Mint 16 Petra, Cinnamon, 64Bit. Fresh from install USB, with updates downloaded during install March 31, 2014.

Steps to reproduce:
Install from USB, with encrypted home, since FDE doesn't work either. # I am not sure if the encrypted home is relevant, I will try to test.
Create user, say "John", during install wizard.
Reboot, get login screen. Choose "John" and log in.

Expected: Cinnamon loads.

What happens: Indefinite black screen with cursor.

When I switched to a tty, login, and "startx" I got a desktop with a warning that Cinnamon has crashed, and is now running in Fallback mode. I checked glxinfo, got permission denied, and added "John" to group "video". Now, after a reboot, it seems to work fine.

However, this is not a fix that Mint's target audience can be expected to deal with themselves. This should also be a trivial fix, I imagine.

[Nathan Fish (nfish-e)]

Ok, so if I install Mint in Vbox(3D accel on), with encrypted home, it logs in to desktop fine. Perhaps it is specific to the driver? It's an Radeon HD 3000 on the motherboard.

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

I was thinking this - I think this is a problem with the drivers providing correct 3D acceleration, rather than a bug in Cinnamon somewhere. Can I suggest posting this on the forum, to allow the community to investigate the circumstances and nail down the specific scenario?

[Nathan Fish (nfish-e)]

Yes, it would seem to be driver-specific, since it can't be reproduced in Virtualbox. This makes it hard to test. I can run a liveCD on the PC in question, but I can't change the hard drive installation, it's already set up for a client. I don't think that's any use though, since the LiveCD permissions are completely different. My virtualbox users are not part of "video" group, yet have full 3D accel if I enable it in Vbox, so I'm confused. It could be a completely different bug, applying only to first login, that my "fix" had nothing to do with. What I can do, actually, is create another user on that PC for testing, and delete it later. I can't make any system changes though.

[Nathan Fish (nfish-e)]

Just made a user "test" , Admin as well, he can login fine. I have no idea what is going on. Could it be a oneoff from install?

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

Could be....
It's a shame you can't test the actuall install more (e.g If you make a "John2" user, does it suffer the same?)

[Nathan Fish (nfish-e)]

my last comment was about that, I made user "test" on Mint PC, using Users and Groups GUI. (admin like first user). He did not have that problem. Interestingly, the hanging with cursor and black screen happened on shutdown the other day, I switched to tty1 and back, and it was back to a lock screen. Then it would let me shutdown normally. I am quite confused.