Terminal window displays as an inactive plain white window, but most of Ubuntu 9.04 works 95%

Terminal window displays as an inactive plain white window, but most of Ubuntu 9.04 works 95%

I have installed Ubuntu 9.04 from a CD which I have used successfully before. The desktop opens every time with a 1cm x 1cm black square around the cursor. In nearly every situation this square persists in the area the cursor was last and displaying at a time lag. The displayed content of the square is from the window the cursor was in last!

Terminals tty1-6 work – a little used. To complete a command line tutorial is still on my to do list!

If I open a GUI terminal, a plain white window appears. There is no reaction to the keyboard. However a right mouse click in the window allows “show menu bar”, with menu bar “on“ (but it is not showing) a left click on the top edge allows menu drop downs, which work correctly.

This screenshot shows a newly opened terminal, and my ghost square displaying the remains of the TakeScreenshot button.
#
I can open GUI Update Manager ok, request update, ok, till “Starting Administrativ...” - the window which would be asking for my password appears, ghostly white, no text, no colour, nothing. However if I mouse click the centre of it, and enter my password the update proceeds!

The box is now updated to kernel 2.6.28-18 generic, while the cd contained 2.6.28-11 generic.

One more characteristically primal eccentricity: when I drag and drop, the selected item (usually helpfully colour highlighted), fails to display, in an exaggerated white void. However I get the desired result.

The machine was from a YMCA charity shop, it came with no hard drive.

Spec:
CPU 1200MHz. Celeron
256 MB RAM. 2*128MB PC133
Emachines. Motherboard Lomita, Trigem Computer, Inc.
Onboard Video: 82810E DC-133 (CGC) Chipset Graphics Controller
Intel Corporation, Trigem Computer Inc.
BIOS PhoenixAward release date 3/6/02

History:
I put in the hard drive ex my main box which expired last month.
I DOS fdisk and formated it. When I came to install Ubuntu I was surprised to be offered, as a default, the machine name that had persisted on this disk from the last machine. I allowed Ubuntu installer to format new partition again (twice). The install failed once at “install base system” - I aborted, started again, failed at “install software”, I started again (including the “format” offered by the installer – success.

What did I do next?

1 I have checked the integrity of the CD with the tool on it.
2 I have run Memory Test for 4 hours, 5 passes, 0 errors.
3 I ran System Test and submitted to Launchpad.
4 I noticed in the report:
 mouse skip System category not supported.
 resolution skip System category not supported.
 video skip System category not supported.
lspci -vvnn (as performed in checkbox report)
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82810E DC-133 (GMCH) Graphics Memory Controller Hub [8086:7124] (rev 03)

 Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel
 Kernel modules: intel-agp

00:01.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82810E DC-133 (CGC) Chipset Graphics Controller [8086:7125] (rev 03)

 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
 Region 0: Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
 Region 1: Memory at f4000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
 Capabilities: <access denied>

5 I changed from a PS2 mouse to USB and restart with no effect.

6 System, Preferences, Display, offers resolutions of 640x480 and 800x600 only although the monitor is capable of more.

7 I notice straight after Grub … starting … I get a message:-

[ 2.184784] ACPI Invalid PBLK length [5]

8 I checked out the Video chipset on Hardware4Linux

info.product 82810E DC-133 (CGC) Chipset Graphics Controller
info.udi /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_8086_7125

#Hardware4Linux mentions Driver i2c-i810

info.product Direct Rendering Manager Device
info.parent /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_8086_7125
info.capabilities drm access_control
access_control.type video
access_control.file /dev/dri/card0

#Shares same pci_8086_7125 as above.

info.product 82810E DC-133 (GMCH) Graphics Memory Controller Hub
info.linux.driver agpgart-intel
info.udi /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_8086_7124

#Hardware4Linux mentions Driver agpgart-intel in Kernel 2.6.25-
Is agpgart-intel the whole driver or do I need to find and install the driver i2c-i810 too?
I have failed to find anything about driver i2c-i810 which I can comprehend.

9 In my BIOS default Onboard Video Memory was 1MB. I changed to 512KB.
GUI seemed unaffected by change, but booting screen was unreadable in parts and tty1 appeared at a very low resolution. Changed back. The default Primary Video Adapter was pci, changed to AGP – no apparent change.

10 I followed some Ubuntu Wiki suggestions to tinker with xrandr, but was not confident that I could make any progress here.

11 /etc/X11/xorg.conf exists but opening it with gedit reveals no text at all,
man /etc/X11/xorg.conf gives the response “manual page xorg.conf line ?/?(END)”
Does this just mean that I used the wrong command to call up xorg.conf manual?
Later:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
response: overwriting possibly-customised file; backup saved …
Restart. No noticeable change to display problem.
I am thinking the problem does not lie here.

12 I have used the computer for 4 days. Apart from the ghosting square, which is very annoying, the following work satisfactorily:- Firefox, Disc Use Analyser, Text Editor, Ethernet, Install Printer, my very old dot matrix printer, USB stick. As expected Open Office struggles with only 256MB RAM but in addition to expected behaviour it has caused the machine to hang – associated with cursor activity / scrolling.

What should I do next?

I am drawn to format the HD and start again because I wonder if the HD is corrupted from its previous install of Ubuntu on a different machine.
I do not really think this is very likely.
I would very much like to understand what is going on first.
I am not sure of the protocol but this seems quite close to Bug #430425
Gnome Terminal starts up, but menubar is white-on-white, no characters seen.

Thanks,
Iain