Thinkpads Forum

I've tried the current Debian release and its variants Ubuntu (8.04, 8.10, 9.04) and Mint 7 on my X30. All of which produce the same problem: garbled fonts and sometimes halfway rendered images. Fedora and DSL do not produce the problem, but I also do not want to use them.

The fonts are garbled after a few minutes of usage and get progressively worse making text unreadable forcing me to logout/in or reboot to see readable text again. The problem is produced regardless of the font in use and is done across all programs and throughout the system.

I came across something earlier today..er, yesterday that said something about a driver causing the issue, but alas, I cannot find it now.

Anyone know the cause? ..a fix?

i'd be interested to know what programs you are installing on the OS. or possibly a third party printer/driver you are connecting to.

I'm running Mint7 on an x31 with no problems, but I have not really installed anything..... yet.

Unfortunately it happens with a fresh install with no extra drivers and nothing attached to the system.

While chasing some issues I had with Pud and DSL, I read about some folks having issues with bad torrent iso's. I guess after running the check sum after the fact they found errors in the file.

Might try another HD or do a fitness test on yours. If you have a 2gig usb stick you could run mint off the usb to see if there is something going on with the HD.
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/usb-linux- ... n-windows/

They are all debian based distributions, I would check for software issues, i.e. Debian based Freetype packages.

Have you tried a Knoppix Live CD to see if you can duplicate the problem? That's Debian based also, but worth a try. If you can't duplicate, I would try to use the xorg.conf from Knoppix. Or, if that doesn't work, try the xorg.conf from the Fedora or DSL release. Anyway, if you look at the other the xorg.conf files, you may get some ideas on the video settings.

I have:
-A brand new HD, so I don't think it's that. Also, the text problem doesn't happen with other distros ie. Fedora.
-Checked for bugs on several sites. There are lots of folks having the same problem with specific applications, ie. Firefox, QT4 apps, etc. But not throughout the system.
-Not tried swapping xorg.conf files nor have I tried Knoppix recently. I'll give this a try once I get some more time.

I've also tried Ubuntu 7, which seems to work fine. It's just anything above that. I think I may just stay with Ubuntu 7, or rough through it with Mint.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

t140568 wrote:I have:
-A brand new HD, so I don't think it's that. Also, the text problem doesn't happen with other distros ie. Fedora.
-Checked for bugs on several sites. There are lots of folks having the same problem with specific applications, ie. Firefox, QT4 apps, etc. But not throughout the system.
-Not tried swapping xorg.conf files nor have I tried Knoppix recently. I'll give this a try once I get some more time.

I've also tried Ubuntu 7, which seems to work fine. It's just anything above that. I think I may just stay with Ubuntu 7, or rough through it with Mint.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Have you seen if Debian has patched their Freetype/other font rendering packages differently than other Distributions? This could easily explain it.

I'm taking a wag here, but it could be due to the composite extension in X.org. If you're using Ubuntu GNOME, try going into the 'Visual Effects' tab under 'Preferences' > 'Appearance' and setting it to none. This will turn off the fancy effects like the minimizing animations and transparent windows and shadows, but it speeds up the system quite a bit. On older hardware, it may cause some glitches in the graphics if they are not turned off (guess).

I'm not sure how to configure the new Xorg to not load the composite extension, but on older ones you could add the following to your xorg.conf: I had to double check the type of gfx card in the X30, and almost posted stuff that was only relevant to the 31/32. I stumbled upon this post which may be of some use:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.p ... 29075.html

Alright... I think I got it.
added to xorg.conf

I've been running my X30 without the slightest error for about an hour.