Desperate plea for help with graphics problem

[John Hupp]

On 1/2/2014 7:24 PM, Jeffrey Needle wrote:
> Hello.  I downloaded Lubuntu 13.10 today and updated the system
> completely.  I'm running on a Dell Dimension 3000 desktop.  I'm
> encountering a problem with graphics that is not unique to Lubuntu, but
> perhaps can be solved here.
>
> I use Evolution as my groupware client.  Version 3.2.3, that ships with
> many distros based on the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, is buggy and annoying.  You
> need to have a distro that runs at least Ubuntu 12.10 in order to have
> the dependencies you need to run later versions of Evolution, which work
> much better.
>
> But later versions of Linux bork my graphics in both Firefox and
> Chromium.  When I try to play a video, say, on YouTube, the video is
> squished and distorted, just maddening!
>
> So, my quandary: I need later versions of Evolution in order to get my
> work done, which require later versions of the Ubuntu software, but
> these later versions seem to really bork my graphics so that I can't see
> anything!
>
> Oddly, VLC works fine.  And I can copy a URL from YouTube, open it in
> VLC, and it works just fine!
>
> I'm so puzzled.  If anyone can help, I'd really be grateful.  Thanks.
>
>
>

I wonder if you are looking at behavior from a bug I wrestled with last 
year: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1212455

If so, the bug thread has a nice work-around (Comment #39).

Although I must say that in my case, I had no experience of playing 
these videos (successfully or otherwise) in VLC -- didn't occur to me to 
test this.  And it does provoke questions about why VLC works fine with 
these.