<SOLVED>LMDE Betsy black banding on screen.

[fred barclay]

First let me say, I mean no disrespect to pure Debian by asking for help on LMDE. I like Debian, I'm using Jessie at the moment, and I suspect I'll never wander far from Debian.
With that said, I do like Mint, and I would be using LMDE Betsy Cinnamon (based on Jessie) at the moment were it not for a strange graphics issue. Evey so often, the background will have black bands form across it, and icons (such as the home page button) in Firefox will vanish. This does not occur in Jessie, and has occured in both the Cinnamon and MATE versions of Betsy, so I believe it's a Mint problem, and not an issue with Jessie. Also, since Cinnamon and MATE have done fine for me in Jessie, I don't believe it's a desktop issue either.
I have screenshots here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 03#p996303
I've contacted Clem--head Mint dev--and am trying to work it out.
One of the things Clem suggested was for me to run

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dpkg -l

in both Jessie and Betsy (Cinnamon on both OSes), and compare the outputs. I've done so, however, I lack the expertise to interpret what the output means. So if someone is willing to take a peek at them for me, and/or try and walk me through possible fixes, I'd be grateful.
Jessie
Betsy

And "inxi -Gx" for both systems (same machine, dual-boot)

Jessie

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Graphics:  Card: Intel 82915G/GV/910GL Integrated Graphics Controller
           bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.16.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1366x768@59.79hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 915G x86/MMX/SSE2
           GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 10.3.2 Direct Rendering: Yes

Betsy

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    fred@mark14:62 ~ $ inxi -Gx
    Graphics:  Card: Intel 82915G/GV/910GL Integrated Graphics Controller
               bus-ID: 00:02.0
               Display Server: X.Org 1.16.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
               Resolution: 1366x768@59.79hz
               GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 915G x86/MMX/SSE2
               GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 10.3.2 Direct Rendering: Yes

They look identical to me.

Thanks!

[Ardouos]

LMDE have their own forums: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewforum.php?f=228

p.s. Thanks for having no disrespect for Jessie and Debian.

[fred barclay]

Thanks, Ardouos.
I probably should have worded the original better. What I am asking is: "Since Betsy and Jessie have the same base, can you help me look at this and understand why the graphics in Betsy are failing, while Jessie is fine?"
I have asked about this on the LMDE forums--actually, the link to the screenshots is to one of my posts there. The reason I'm asking here is because I figure that, since pure Debian works for me, I need advice on what's working. Kind of like not asking a poor man to describe a gold coin, but asking a rich man instead.
Hope this makes sense.

[stevepusser]

The thread title immediately made this song appear and get stuck in my head.

If I believed in any of that psychic woo, I'd say the signs point to a problem in your video RAM, or perhaps your RAM JAM, or bam-alam-alam. However, this is a head scratcher. Are there any differences in the GRUB boot command? I'm assuming there's no xorg.conf file, and both systems are using the same kernel, xorg stack, GTK3, Mate, and Cinnamon packages?

[stevepusser]

Also am wondering if it could be related to these bug reports. AFAIK, the 8 series Intel chipsets always seem to have had video problems, and according to the last post in that thread, will lose support.

You could try adding Mint repos to a Jessie install, and add Mint packages that you'd like to use. Maybe you'd end up with a working hybrid, maybe you'd find the guilty package.

[fred barclay]

I'm not using MATE at the moment, so I don't know if the version in Jessie is the same in Betsy. Cinnamon is newer in Betsy--2.4.8 at the moment, while in Jessie it's 2.2.16. However, with the screen affecting both MATE and Cinnamon in Betsy, I doubt the issue is desktop-related.
Also, when I did use MATE in a previous Jessie installation (upgraded to Sid), there was no problem.

I'm creating a VBox Jessie install now, and I'll try adding repos and converting as much as possible. Maybe I'll find something.
What I don't understand is that, if it's a incompatability with newer drivers, why does only Betsy affect it? I ran Sid on this machine a week ago (Cinnamon desktop, of course) and never had any problems. Arch on cinnamon was also perfect. Both of these likely use newer drivers.

Also, although in the bug report he mentions that his machine uses the i915 chip, doesn't the report itself indicate the 815 chip?
Mine, so far as I can tell, is i915.

One last thought. I installed Jessie minimally, and then added "task-cinnamon-desktop" after installation (wifi-only machine, and I have to install Jessie before I can install the drivers needed for wifi--long story. I don't suspect that this should have any effect, but who knows? On the virtual Jessie I am able, of course, to access internet, so I'm installing Cinnamon in the OS installation itself.

[fred barclay]

And wonder of wonders, the Liquorix 4.0-5 kernel seems to have solved the problem.

Still no idea why this occurred. Since Betsy and Jessie use the same kernel, why didn't I have trouble in Jessie? Ah, well, all's well that ends well, I guess.
Doesn't mean I'll stop trying to figure out why I had trouble!

Special thanks to everyone who took a shot at it.
Fred

[Ardouos]

Still no idea why this occurred. Since Betsy and Jessie use the same kernel

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 15#p542283