Visual Effects can not be enabled on Santa Rosa

[Xiaoyang Yu]

Hardware:
Lenovo ThinkPad T61

Software:
Gutsy alternate amd64 daily build on 2007/10/16.

Bug description:
After installation, the Visual Effects was set to "None". If select "Normal" or "Extra" , an error dialog box popped up with message "Desktop effects could not be enabled".

[Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik)]

Hi, Is this with the i965 chipset? If so this is expected behaviour. Composite is not fully supported yet so it is switched off by default.

Michael, could you elaborate on ths?

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

If this machine has a intel i965, then this is expected behavior (also the error message is not ideal because it gives no further explaination). The reason for the blacklisting is that the i965 does no longer have video overlay hardware and the only way to get Xv video working under compiz with this card is to enable the new and experimental EXA acceleration architecture.

It is possible to override this checks by creating:
~/.config/compiz/compiz-manager
and adding SKIP_CHECKS=y

More information can be found in the file ~/.xsession-errors. The blacklist is currently part of /usr/bin/compiz

[Xiaoyang Yu (xiaoyang-yu)]

I'm not sure about "i965". This bug is with 965GM.

[Xiaoyang Yu (xiaoyang-yu)]

I've attached ".xsession_errors" and the output of lspci. Please check to see whether it is "i965".

I created the "compiz-manager" file as what you described, and restarted the X, but the same bug still occurred.

[Rolla Selbak (rolla-n-selbak)]

I know, for me anyway, the effects used to work well on the T61...I can reproduce this bug now...

Xiaoyang, when did this change occur? (i.e. when did this bug first show up)...Tribe 5? 6?

[Xiaoyang Yu (xiaoyang-yu)]

This bug was not occurred in Tribe 5 (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/129627 for reference).

There is no Tribe 6...

We didn't test Gutsy Beta because of the National holiday and the F2F meetings with US folks.

Kevin tested RC but he didn't test this feature.

[Rolla Selbak (rolla-n-selbak)]

The reason why visual effects are not enabled by default on T61s is because the Intel 965 card is on the compiz blacklist. This was disabled after the September 19th update.

http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Hardware/Blacklist

A work-around is to execute the following:

#!/bin/sh
SKIP_CHECKS=yes compiz --replace

You can add it to your "Sessions" for the .sh to run at login time: System -> Preferences -> Sessions.

Reference: T61 Gutsy ThinkWiki: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Ubuntu_7.10_(Gutsy_Gibbon)_on_a_ThinkPad_T61#Display.2FVideo

[Xiaoyang Yu (xiaoyang-yu)]

Rolla, Thanks for the information. Have you tried this work arround on
your T61? I have tried some silimiar work arround methods but they
didn't work.

[Rolla Selbak (rolla-n-selbak)]

Yes, it worked for me when I ran the script manually.
I must note, though, that when I tried adding the script to my 'sessions' to run at login time, I got unstable results. Try running the script manually, it should work.

[Rolla Selbak (rolla-n-selbak)]

This particular bug does NOT occur anymore with Hardy Alpha-2 on Santa Rosa (Thinkpad T61 965GM).

However when visual effects are enabled with 'extra', other bugs occur such as the window bars of apps disappearing.
Reference: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/178832

Xiaoyang, I would suggest closing this particular bug unless you've found different results than myself.

[Xiaoyang Yu (xiaoyang-yu)]

Yes This is bug was fixed in Hardy Alpha-2.