Fresh install of Kubuntu 12.04 gives non-responding desktop

[heinkel_111]

I just installed 12.04 on a computer recently recovered from hardware trouble. It is a workstation set up I would call high end 4 years ago, with AMD64 processor and NVIDIA graphics card, but I cannot remember the model of any of those anymore. The hardware problems were power supply related but appears to have been fixed, at least it is symptom free for now.

A couple of days ago I tested the machine extensively with the live DVD and experienced no problems, except the usual live distro "got to wait for reading data from DVD first" slowness.
Then I installed, akso from DVD, reformatting /boot and / partitions, and starting a new /home on the / although I do have an old 8.04 /home partition eleswhere that I plan to mount later. I think this should be functionally equivalent to a clean install.

I am surprised to see then, that the screen is updating slower than my Leica slide projector after the installation. I am practically unable to manipulate anything on the desktop because of its unresponsiveness. Mouse clicks take like a half to a whole minute to register and just walking the mouse pointer across the screen is a painful exercise.

Instinctively I booted into recovery mode and started to look at Xorg.conf, only to learn that those hacks are way out of date! What do you do then, to get the graphics driver working right these days? I have had kubuntu since the 6.something days and I could bet money that this is the behavior you get when the desktop tries to use compositing features to look fancy, but it has not been enabled in the graphics driver setup. It used to be when your system woke up with the nv driver instead of the proprietary NVIDIA driver. Then it was just to correct in Xorg.conf and restart X. What do you do in 12.04 times to fix this?

[heinkel_111]

Note to self... alt+ shift+f12 is kubuntu default to switch off fancy desktop effects: and voila, it flies! At least it make sit possible to find out where the cause of the problem lies with the usual desktop instead of having to resort to console work.

[Dutchman]

I also have an older AMD64 computer with a nVidia graphics card, and to start that's a problem. Most all the hardware in the computer is ATI, which doesn't play well with nVidia. In my installation it defaulted to the nouveau driver, which is better than nv for this hardware, but hardly enjoyable to watch or use.

Being you have to screen working bearably, I'd open Kinfocenter and see which model nVidia card you have. It should be listed under 'Device > PCI' . When you have the card model, you can go to the package manager and download the proper driver. It should configure everything automatically.

Another option, perhaps easier and safer, would be to use Jockey and let it install the proper driver. You should be able to find it under the menu item 'System > Additional Drivers'.

Having the proprietary driver installed made a HUGE difference on my machine. Even with a fair amount of effects enabled, KDE flies.

[jlittle]

My system is similar to yours, but was even less responsive than yours on a fresh 12.04.1 install (in that I couldn't successfully click on anything) after logging in.
However, a failsafe login worked (click on the little down arrow) and then system settings, desktop effects, all effects tab, disable Blur, apply, logout, and I could login to KDE properly, (KDE plasma I think it's called) and it works really well, snappier than the 11.10 I used before.
Regards, John Little