[ubuntu-uk] Visual Effects are greyed out

[Rob Beard]

On 22/07/10 15:52, Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:
> On 22/07/10 15:46, Dave Morley wrote:
>> On Thu, 2010-07-22 at 15:36 +0100, Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:
>>
>>> On 22/07/10 15:35, Dave Morley wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Thu, 2010-07-22 at 15:32 +0100, Gordon Burgess-Parker wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I installed 10.04 Remix on my Laptop from a flash drive (because it's
>>>>> MUCH faster than using the CD) but if I right-click on the desktop,
>>>>> choose "Change Desktop background" and click on the Visual Effects tab,
>>>>> it's set to None and all the options are greyed out.
>>>>> I know that the graphics card is good because it runs Aero on (cough
>>>>> cough!) Windows 7....
>>>>> How do I enable this?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> It possible needs 3d gfx drivers for the 3d stuff to work.  Do you know
>>>> what card is in the machine?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I don't. What command in the terminal should I issue?
>>>
>>>
>> Fire up hardware drivers from System->Administration.  Although I'm not
>> sure how reliable it will be running it from USB.
>>
> That just comes up with a window that says "No proprietary drivers on
> this system".
> BTW, I'm not RUNNING from a flash drive, I installed to my HDD FROM a
> flash drive...
>

Have you still got Windows on there?

If so, boot into Windows, right click on the desktop select Screen 
Resolution and then click Advanced Settings.  It should tell you what 
the graphics card is (manufacturer and model).

Otherwise in a terminal, try lspci and look for a line similar to this 
one...

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 
Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

IIRC regardless of what graphics card is in there it should say VGA 
compatible.

Rob