Newby: screen corrupted.

[Tim Hunt]

I have just installed Ubuntu for the first time.

I installed from the Hoary preview install CD, and then updated 
everything using whatever the update notifier by the clock is on the 
gnome desktop. The problem was present before and after the upgrade.

Symptoms: The screen display is messed up. Imagine you take the desktop, 
cut it from top to bottom with some vertical cuts, then re-arrange those 
vertical strips, duplicating some, and missing out some others. Also, a 
little bit of noise on some of the joins.

This is a fairly old PC, so none of the hardware in there is terribly 
obscure. The graphics card is an ATI All-in-Wonder 128 Pro AGP. The 
screen is an Iiyama AS4821. A quick look in /etc/X11/xorg.conf suggests 
to me that it has correctly identified these, and has got some sensible 
resolutions set up. Doing Ctrl-Alt-+/- within X to change resolution, or 
changing resolution/refresh rate using the Gnome control panel does not 
make a difference, you get the same sort of corruption.

Any help gratefully received. Also any suggestions for further diagnostics.

Thanks,

Tim.

P.S. I have some limited experience of using, but not administering 
Linux/Unix systems. I am a programmer by profession and Cygwin is about 
the first thing in install on any Windows system.