Ubuntu 9.10 display driver explanation

[noone]

Hi, I installed Ubuntu 9.10 and followed the detailed instructions on how to add the fit-pc PPA with the custom kernel and display driver.
The package that installs the display driver is called xserver-xorg-video-poulsbo
After some googling I found that the Karmic Ubuntu netbook remix edition (that works with the same Intel GMA 500 chipset) has a package named xserver-xorg-video-psb. Are these packages the same? Did anybody use the *-psb one and get better results if any? Right now I can't get the visual effects to work and I have some display resolution problems.

Thanks.

[Denis]

The driver on Ubuntu netbook remix is differ from our, both have pros and cons. With our driver visual effects can not be enabled, sorry.
Can you describe your display resolution problems?

[gman]

Does that mean only HW video acc works and not 2d and 3d ?

[Denis]

2d and 3d works, you can even install openarena, works fine. But enabling visual effects leading to crooked display, I have not succeeded to configure it.

[noone]

Denis, thanks for the response.
My resolution problems are not "that bad". I am using a 22" lcd monitor which can do 1600X1200. During the boot process I see the Ubuntu logo on about 2/3 of the screen (in the phase where Ubuntu is written in white over a brownish background) with two black bars 3-4 cm wide on each side of the screen. During the boot process is suddenly flickers and then the left black bar is filled with this brownish color (but not as a smooth continuation of the rest of the screen). It then turns completely black except for this white progress bar that is still it. When the Login screen appears, everything is OK.
After I work a while, the screen suddenly flickers and I get this "icon" (looks like a tiny window with arrows pointing to all corners of the icon) on the GNOME panel that you can't click on. When you hover over this icon with the mouse there's a tooltip that says something like the display server crashed and I should report this problem to GNOME. After this happens, I am still able to do everything so I just leave this icon.
Generally, it seems like the display driver is pretty slow altogether...

Could you please specify what are the pros and cons of each of the drivers (i.e. the one in the fit-pc repository and the one that's used in UNR). In particular can the one in UNR have visual effects?
Thanks!

[ypnos]

The UNR driver will probably make your display flicker in 1600x1200 resolution.

[noone]

I found on Launchpad that the "little icon" that appears after the screen flickers I was describing is a known bug in gnome-power-manager.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/423694
I am experiencing this bug on my fit-pc but not on my dell xps m1330 laptop which runs Karmic as well. I just wanted to know if other fit-pc users are experiencing the same problem

[noone]

My first problem in finally fixed (the boot screen had those black patches until I logged in). The fix was simply to edit the xorg.conf file and putting in the "real" resolution of my screen (1680X1050). For some reason it was set to 1280X1024. In any case, this also allowd me to use Docky (before it would mess up the whole bottom part of my screen). BTW, Docky's a little slow on this machine (don't know if that's the display driver's problem or not).