Edubuntu 14.04 slow on fresh install and unusable when using appropriate NVIDIA driver

Have you tried a non-compoziting session like xfce?

I just installed xfce using
sudo apt-get install xfce

and it seems to be working for the five minutes I , My example of why I wanted this to work was Celestia (program on Edubuntu) and it seemed to load fine.

Am I going to have to stick to this environment?
I am still curious as to what happened with Edubuntu. Is there something that can be done either hardware or software?

This is a great start.

You can still use the Edubuntu applications in XFCE...

Yes I saw this although there was the occasional hiccup (slowdown) but I've already got the kids playing with it. However I still I would still like to know why it is not working. I had this computer built to run Edubuntu specifically based on the recommended specifications.

I'm not sure if this is related but once I was in XFCE I ran the system testing app (which I was not able to run even before the installation of nvidia driver) and it showed problems with compiz so I tried to log on to Gnome (Compiz) and I had the same problems as when I tried to log into Ubuntu, slow to non existant graphics.
I did install ccsm but don't really want to play too much because I can't find much information about using it yet.

The result for graphics/compiz_check was Failed: Not blacklisted: no Compiz supported: no (is this only because of xfce?
)
graphics/xorg-failsafe Failed

Also the result for graphics/driver_version mentions version 346.59 (instead of 304?, never seen this)

In addition, I went through the logs shown in the results from the system testing and found the following Nvidia related information and issues:

under lspci_attachment:
Kernel driver in use:nvidia

Under dmesg_attachment:
nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel
Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
nvidia: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel
vgaarb: device changed decodes: PCI:0000:01:00.0, olddecodes=io+mem, decodes=none:owns=none
[drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20140818 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0
NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86 Kernel Module 304.125 Mon Dec 1 19:55:52 PST 2014

Under lsmod_attachment:
nvidia: Unavailable

The full file is available upon request, I'm sure I've left some important stuff since I am typing on a second computer.

Thanks again

More information that I was wondering if relevent. I managed to get back to my nouveau driver and ran this command:
/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

and received this result:
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.4, 128 bits)
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 10.1.3

Not software rendered: no
Not blacklisted: no
GLX fbconfig: yes
GLX texture from pixmap: yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes
GL vertex program: yes
GL fragment program: yes
GL vertex buffer object: yes
GL framebuffer object: yes
GL version is 1.4+: yes

Unity 3D supported: no

Wait. Is this installed in VMWare?

Not sure what that is? I searched the term and the results were NOT familiar... Is that related to the driver? or the graphics card

On a whim, I decided to not only to do a fresh install but instead of using the iso file I had downloaded a while ago, I downloaded the most up to date Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS available on the Ubuntu site(rather than Edubuntu) 64 bit OS and just installed it (selected erase everything and install). Right now I am reviewing settings before I try and install any Nvidia drivers.

Running this same command I get almost the same results. except:
On line 2: (LLVM 3.5, 128 bits)
On line 3: 3.0 Mesa 10.3.2

I don't know much about OpenGL other than the min requirements for the Graphics card. I will try and do some reading tonight.

Hopefully this information will provide some answers. Also, could this be linked to bug 1268146? Although my problem is with a fresh install rather than an upgrade

So on a fresh install of Ubuntu 14.04 with updates here is my response from /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p:
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.5, 128 bits)
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 10.3.2

Not software rendered: no
Not blacklisted: no
GLX fbconfig: yes
GLX texture from pixmap: yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes
GL vertex program: yes
GL fragment program: yes
GL vertex buffer object: yes
GL framebuffer object: yes
GL version is 1.4+: yes

Unity 3D supported: no

From /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -c -p

OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.5, 128 bits)
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 10.3.2

Not software rendered: no
Not blacklisted: no
GLX fbconfig: yes
GLX texture from pixmap: yes
GL npot or rect textures: yes

Compiz supported: no

I have a done a number of tests to determine whether this machine has VMware on it and as far as I can tell the answer is no.

Finally, here is the output of sudo lshw -short
H/W path Device Class Description
===================================================
                            system P35-S3G ()
/0 bus P35-S3G
/0/0 memory 128KiB BIOS
/0/4 processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4600 @
/0/4/a memory 64KiB L1 cache
/0/4/b memory 2MiB L2 cache
/0/1b memory 2GiB System Memory
/0/1b/0 memory 1GiB DIMM 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
/0/1b/1 memory DIMM [empty]
/0/1b/2 memory 1GiB DIMM 667 MHz (1.5 ns)
/0/1b/3 memory DIMM [empty]
/0/100 bridge 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express DRAM Controlle
/0/100/1 bridge 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express PCI Express Ro
/0/100/1/0 display G72 [GeForce 7200 GS / 7300 SE]
/0/100/1a bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller
/0/100/1a.1 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller
/0/100/1a.2 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller
/0/100/1a.7 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controlle
/0/100/1b multimedia 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller
/0/100/1c bridge 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1
/0/100/1c.4 bridge 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5
/0/100/1c.4/0 storage JMB368 IDE controller
/0/100/1c.5 bridge 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 6
/0/100/1c.5/0 eth0 network RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Et
/0/100/1d bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller
/0/100/1d.1 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller
/0/100/1d.2 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller
/0/100/1d.7 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controlle
/0/100/1e bridge 82801 PCI Bridge
/0/100/1f bridge 82801IB (ICH9) LPC Interface Controller
/0/100/1f.2 storage 82801IB (ICH9) 2 port SATA Controller [I
/0/100/1f.3 bus 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller
/0/100/1f.5 storage 82801I (ICH9 Family) 2 port SATA Control
/0/1 scsi0 storage
/0/1/0.0.0 /dev/cdrom disk DVDRAM GH20NS10
/0/2 scsi1 storage
/0/2/0.0.0 /dev/sda disk 250GB ST3250410AS
/0/2/0.0.0/1 /dev/sda1 volume 230GiB EXT4 volume
/0/2/0.0.0/2 /dev/sda2 volume 2045MiB Extended partition
/0/2/0.0.0/2/5 /dev/sda5 volume 2045MiB Linux swap / Solaris partition
/0/3 scsi2 storage
/0/3/0.0.0 /dev/sr1 disk DVD+-RW DH-16A6S

Based on a post I had in AskUbuntu my graphics card does not work with compiz/Unity. Going to look into a hardware upgrade.