RE: Graphics Problems with gnome-shell-3.10.3

[John Frankish <j-frankish slb com>]

> > > > > On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 6:31 AM, John Frankish <j-frankish slb com> wrote:
> > > > > I've compiled gnome-3.10.x from source to run on a machine with an intel core-i7 2640m 2.8GHz cpu 
> > > > > with 8GB RAM and intel hd3000 graphics on 64bit tinycorelinux using a 3.8.13 kernel.
> > > > >
> > > > > Using gnome-session/gnome-shell, most things seem to work, but the graphics display is very poor.
> > > > >
> > > > > The display background continually turns bright white and dragging any window produces a trail of 
> > > > > multiple windows behind it. The only way to fix this seems to use the mac/special/windows key to 
> > > > > move to the "task- switcher" screen and back again.
> > > > >
> > > > > Setting CLUTTER_PAINT="disable-clipped-redraws:disable-culling" does not seem to help appreciably.
> > > > >
> > > > > Are the above problems caused by the graphics not being powerful enough or is it a software problem?
> > > > >
> > > > > If it is a software problem, are there any patches available to fix this without moving to 
> > > > > gnome-3.12.x? The software in use is listed below.
> > > > >
> > > > > Regards
> > > > > John
> > > > It's an issue with the background and can be fixed by setting your background to a constant color. 
> > > > You can also apply the four patches in this bug, but I'm not sure if it will cleanly apply on top of 
> > > > 3.10.x:
> > > >
> > > > https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=722149
> > >
> > > Thanks for the suggestions.
> > >
> > > I don't think this is an issue with the background - if I chose a
> > > plain colour from gnome-backgrounds, it does not improve things - or
> > > perhaps I misunderstood?
> > >
> > > Most of the four patches do not apply cleanly so as an alternative I
> > > took "backgrounds.js" from gnome-shell-3.13.1, but this did not
> > > improve things either...
> >
> > I pasted the error log below, but nothing seems point to what the
> > problem might be?
> I played around with this some more and checked Xorg.0.log for errors - see
> attached - without finding anything.
>
> The trail of windows produced by dragging a window only happens when the
> window crosses the background, it does not happen when crossing another
> window.
>
> The background "white-out" happens every time I access gnome-control-
> center via the icons in the right hand corner of the top panel and randomly at
> other times.
>
> As before using the mac/special/windows key to swap to the task-switcher
> fixes things, but gets tiresome :P
>
> There must surely be a way to fix this?

I finally found the answer - to disable the newer "sna" graphics acceleration and enable the older "uxa" 
acceleration.

Now both problems - the "white-outs" and trail of multiple window images when dragging a window - have 
disappeared.

Hardware/software details below.

----------

[  1838.558] (II) intel: Driver for Intel(R) Integrated Graphics Chipsets:
[  1838.572] (--) intel(0): Integrated Graphics Chipset: Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000
xf86-video-intel-2.21.15

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated 
Graphics Controller [8086:0126] (rev 09)
Kernel driver in use: i915

$ cat /var/log/Xorg* | grep SNA
[   196.737] (II) intel(0): SNA initialized with Sandybridge (gen6, gt2) backend

Create following file:
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
   Driver      "intel"
   Option      "AccelMethod"  "uxa"
EndSection

[  1838.977] (II) UXA(0): Driver registered support for the following operations:
[  1838.977] (II) intel(0): Use standard UXA acceleration