Desktop effects could not be enabled on my Alienware

To help you better we need some infos about your hardware so please open a Terminal from the menu Applications → Accessories → Terminal and type:

lsb_release -sd
uname -a
lspci

lspci is lower of LSPCI

copy and paste result here.

Thank you

Hi,

Here you go:

Ubuntu 9.04

Linux Mars 2.6.28-15-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 9 10:49:34 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 04)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 04)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 04)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 04)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 04)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 04)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 04)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 04)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f4)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M88 XT Mobility Radeon HD 3870]
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon HD 3870 Audio device
05:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Agere Systems FW643 PCI Express1394b Controller (PHY/Link) (rev 06)
06:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
0a:09.0 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
0a:09.1 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C843 MMC Host Controller (rev 12)
0a:09.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
0a:09.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)

Thanks again,

and Good luck,

Jose

Might be this helps http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Jaunty_Installation_Guide

Hope this helps

By the way you have this video card:

VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M88 XT Mobility Radeon HD 3870

and Google is your friend here... please use the

ubuntu 9.04 compiz VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M88 XT Mobility Radeon HD 3870

to get more infos using google

Hth

This page may provide an alternative https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Video#ATI if you're still using Jaunty, and this page may help you if you are now using Karmic 9.10 or Lucid 10.04.

Sorry, I forgot to list the page regarding KMS, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/KernelModeSetting