Finally fixed a nagging Linux problem

Jason Thibeault,

Flash under Ubuntu with Compiz enabled (the graphical layer that does all the nifty desktop effects), has a slight problem under Intel video cards like the one built into my work laptop. Finally, thanks to this article on Tombuntu, I found a fix for the issue.

Just run this command under a terminal:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/compiz/general/screen0/options/unredirect_fullscreen_windows --type bool 0

Or I suppose you could do it the graphical way using the Gnome System Configurator, but that feels way too much like using the Windows registry. Bleh.

Now finally my Flash videos no longer flicker like crazy while not maximized, and don’t slow down while maximized either. Woo-hoo!

Update: well, that didn’t last long. It reverted right back to crazy after closing and reopening Firefox. Suspecting that wasn’t my issue after all.

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Finally fixed a nagging Linux problem

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Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

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4 thoughts on “Finally fixed a nagging Linux problem”

  1. Dan J
    1

    I’ve got nVidia graphics on the desktop systems at home, so haven’t had this specific problem.  I did have a problem with a system (that I’m basically using as a router) that I upgraded from Ubuntu 7.10 to 8.04 a couple weeks ago. The desktop didn’t display properly, the window decorations weren’t there (no min/max/close button, etc), unable to run some programs.

    Looking for clues in the forums led me to the conclusion that several other people had run into a very similar problem, but none seemed to have found a suitable answer, other than using gconftool or  the Gnome System Configurator to make all the necessary changes.

    It seemed apparent that the problem was definitely with Gnome. I finally found a command that fixed it all for me at once:

    gconf-schemas --register-all

    The gconf database had either become corrupted or emptied during the system upgrade, so Gnome had no idea what values it should be passing to all the programs requesting information. The gconf-schemas command fixed it all right away.

  2. jthibeault
    2

    Yeah, my nVidia card on my desktop doesn’t have any such problems either.  Which is a shame, since I do the vast majority of my computing on my laptop. 

    GConf as a whole seems to be modeled far too heavily on the Windows registry, and frankly, it bothers me that that’s the case.  Granted, the configuration file itself is a simple XML file readable in any text editor, so that’s far and away better than the registry hives concept, but still, having to go into some arcanely designed GUI, or being forced to enter a terminal command, is not good design.  That goes double for you, Windows, because you should know better, since you claim to have the corner on ease-of-use.

    That an upgrade hosed your gconf settings is a bit of a surprise though.  Generally upgrades are fairly well tolerated since the configuration files are made of text, and most upgrades (via Apt at least) use diff to find changed settings and migrate them into new formats if need be.  Then again, when you’re doing a full version upgrade, anything goes.  Just try upgrading from Windows 95 to 98 then to ME then to XP and see what happens.  🙂

    No luck on the flash stuff — tried gnash, but it doesn’t do Rachel Maddow or Countdown or anything on thecomedynetwork.ca (since Comedy Central is blocked to we Canucks).  I suspect I can get this to work, and still keep Compiz enabled, if I just find the right options to throw into xorg.conf, but I can’t for the life of me find a listing of options for the Intel driver.  If I could just throw a better card in this bleeding thing, I will.  When I requisition my next laptop, I’m making damn sure it’s got at least an ATI Mobility, if not nVidia.

  3. jthibeault
    3

    FYI, I used <pre> instead of <code> in the above… never occurred to me to use the RIGHT tag.  I’ll add <code> to the CSS one of these days.  🙂

  4. Dan J
    4

    The problem with the upgrade was related to the fact that I was doing it over SSH to a headless machine. If I had hooked up a monitor, mouse, and keyboard I probably would have been fine. KVM switch was not an option without lots of adapters from D-SUB to DVI, PS/2 to USB, etc.

    I don’t have a laptop myself, but a friend’s laptop does very well with ATI video hardware in Ubuntu. It’s often not easy to do the research on new hardware to determine Linux compatibility. I’ve found audio hardware to be problematic for me. I’m using on-board audio for the main stuff (via pulseaudio), but have a secondary PCI card that I tell pulseaudio not to touch. I use that card for Skype.

    The text that I pasted automatically showed up as <pre>, but when submitted, the format was stripped. Switching to <code> on re-editing solved the problem.

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