Can't run SL client on Ubuntu Studio - Window creation error

Hi all!

I'm new to Linux. After tinkering with various live distros of Ubuntu I finally decided to set-up a dual boot of Ubuntu Studio Feisty Fawn 7.04 with Windows XP on my laptop.

So far I've been mightily impressed. Everything 'just works'... networking, wireless, drivers, peripherals, codecs.

Everything that is, except the Second Life client! This is particularly ironic and frustrating as I deal with SL in my work and it's a must have.

When I try to run the client I get a "Window creation error" message.

Research so far indicates this is a problem with my graphics card setup and/or drivers.

I tried changing my screen resolution from 24 bit to 32 bit in xorg.conf as suggested in the README file, but this just stopped Ubuntu Studio from working!

I have a crappy Integrated Intel 82915 GM graphics card (yeah, I know... bought the lappy just before getting into SL... bummer). My understanding is that the latest drivers for that card should come with recent distros. There seem to be some extra Linux drivers for the Intel card here - http://www.intellinuxgraphics.org/download.html - but I don't know if these are any improvement, and I'm not game to experiment after fiddling with the resolution in xorg.conf.

But this is the kicker... I just fired up the standard Ubuntu FF 7.04 live distro on the same machine and the Second Life client ran straight off the bat!

So can anyone give any clues as to what sort of issue this error message might be pointing to, and why I can run the client on Ubuntu but not on Ubuntu Studio on the same machine?

Thanks in advance.

Sean

--------------------------------------------------

Relevant section of the xorg.conf:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "vesa"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 28-64
VertRefresh 43-60
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Generic Video Card"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

--------------------------------------------------

SecondLife.log:

2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: another_instance_running: Checking marker file for lock...
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: another_instance_running: Marker file isn't locked.
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: init_marker_file: Checking marker file for lock...
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: init_marker_file: Marker file created.
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: init_marker_file: Removing message.log
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: Exiting init_marker_file().
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: write_debug: Opening debug file /home/sean/.secondlife/logs/debug_info.log
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: write_system_info: Second Life version 1.18.0
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: write_system_info: Local time: 2007-07-24T04:20:54 EST
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: write_system_info: CPU info:
processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 13 model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.73GHz stepping : 8 cpu MHz : 798.000 cache size : 2048 KB fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no coma_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 2 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe nx up est tm2 bogomips : 1596.74 clflush size : 64
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: write_system_info: Memory info:
MemTotal: 1019348 kB MemFree: 630076 kB Buffers: 10432 kB Cached: 240108 kB SwapCached: 0 kB Active: 174148 kB Inactive: 185368 kB HighTotal: 114496 kB HighFree: 240 kB LowTotal: 904852 kB LowFree: 629836 kB SwapTotal: 859436 kB SwapFree: 859436 kB Dirty: 1180 kB Writeback: 0 kB AnonPages: 108960 kB Mapped: 66164 kB Slab: 17228 kB SReclaimable: 7288 kB SUnreclaim: 9940 kB PageTables: 1696 kB NFS_Unstable: 0 kB Bounce: 0 kB CommitLimit: 1369108 kB Committed_AS: 460636 kB VmallocTotal: 114680 kB VmallocUsed: 6508 kB VmallocChunk: 107588 kB
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: write_system_info: OS info: Linux 2.6.20-16-lowlatency #2 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jun 7 20:23:03 UTC 2007 i686
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Loading feature tables.
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: maskFeatures: Applying Feature Mask: CPUSlow
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Loading configuration file /home/sean/.secondlife/user_settings/settings.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: parseFile: Couldn't open file /home/sean/.secondlife/user_settings/settings.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: parseFile: LLXmlTree parse failed. Line 1: Couldn't open file /home/sean/.secondlife/user_settings/settings.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: loadFromFile: Unable to open control file /home/sean/.secondlife/user_settings/settings.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Failed to load settings from /home/sean/.secondlife/user_settings/settings.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Loading legacy settings from /home/sean/.secondlife/user_settings/settings.ini
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: loadFromFileLegacy: LLControlGroup::loadFromFile unable to open.
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: parseFile: Couldn't open file /home/sean/.secondlife/user_settings/crash_settings.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: parseFile: LLXmlTree parse failed. Line 1: Couldn't open file /home/sean/.secondlife/user_settings/crash_settings.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: loadFromFile: Unable to open control file /home/sean/.secondlife/user_settings/crash_settings.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Loading art table from /home/sean/SecondLife_i686_1_18_0_6/app_settings/viewerart.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Loading art table from /home/sean/SecondLife_i686_1_18_0_6/skins/textures/textures.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Loading base colors from /home/sean/SecondLife_i686_1_18_0_6/app_settings/colors_base.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Loading user colors from /home/sean/SecondLife_i686_1_18_0_6/app_settings/colors.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Failed to load user colors from /home/sean/SecondLife_i686_1_18_0_6/app_settings/colors.xml
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Loading legacy colors from /home/sean/SecondLife_i686_1_18_0_6/app_settings/colors.ini
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: purge_cache: Purging Texture Cache...
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: ll_apr_file_remove failed on file: /home/sean/.secondlife/cache/texture.cache
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: ll_apr_file_remove failed on file: /home/sean/.secondlife/cache/textures/texture.entries
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: purge_cache: Purging Cache...
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: initCache: TEXTURE CACHE: Headers: 139810 Textures size: 320 MB
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: init_cache: VFS CACHE SIZE: 100 MB
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: init_cache: Bad or missing vfx index file /home/sean/.secondlife/cache/index.db2.x.1
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: init_cache: Removing old vfs data file /home/sean/.secondlife/cache/data.db2.x.1
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: init_cache: Removing old vfs and re-sizing
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: presizeDataFile: Pre-sized VFS data file to 104857600 bytes
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: LLVFS: VFS: Using index file /home/sean/.secondlife/cache/index.db2.x.1063719382 and data file /home/sean/.secondlife/cache/data.db2.x.1063719382
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: LLVFS: VFS: Using index file /home/sean/SecondLife_i686_1_18_0_6/app_settings/static_index.db2 and data file /home/sean/SecondLife_i686_1_18_0_6/app_settings/static_data.db2
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: main: Initializing window...
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: ll_try_gtk_init: Starting GTK Initialization.
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: ll_try_gtk_init: GTK Initialized.
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: ll_try_gtk_init: - Compiled against GTK version 2.4.14
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: ll_try_gtk_init: - Running against GTK version 2.10.11
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: createContext, fullscreen=0 size=800x600
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: createContext: Compiled against SDL 1.2.5
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: createContext: Running against SDL 1.2.11
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: createContext: creating window 800x600x32
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z WARNING: createContext: window creation failure. SDL: Couldn't find matching GLX visual
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: destroyContext begins
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: destroyContext: shutdownGL begins
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: destroyContext: SDL_QuitSS/VID begins
2007-07-23T18:20:54Z INFO: OSMessageBoxSDL: Creating a dialog because we're in windowed mode and GTK is happy.
2007-07-23T18:20:57Z INFO: Skipping quitCursors: mWindow already gone.
2007-07-23T18:20:57Z INFO: destroyContext begins
2007-07-23T18:20:57Z INFO: destroyContext: shutdownGL begins
2007-07-23T18:20:57Z INFO: destroyContext: SDL_QuitSS/VID begins
2007-07-23T18:20:57Z WARNING: createWindow: LLWindowManager::create() : Error creating window.
2007-07-23T18:20:57Z WARNING: LLViewerWindow: Unable to create window, be sure screen is set at 32-bit color and your graphics driver is configured correctly. See README-linux.txt for further information.
2007-07-23T18:20:57Z INFO: remove_marker_file()

Just had a thought... below is the relevant section of the xorg.conf from the live Ubuntu distro for comparison.

It looks like the live distro is doing a better job of detecting the video card and selecting a driver than Ubuntu Studio (I read somewhere that vesa was a bad sign).

So the question may be... how do I get Ubuntu Studio to detect the graphics card the same way that Ubuntu did?

Sean

--------------------------------------------------

Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller"
Driver "i810"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 28-51
VertRefresh 43-60
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Would copying the one that works, um, work?

Or try sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

@MoodyLoner: Thanks... I did use 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' in the end... I found out about it after trawling the Ubuntu forums for hours. It was exactly what I needed.

I was presented with way more variables than I was ready to deal with though. I selected the i810 driver as that was the one working on Ubuntu live and went with the defaults on everything else.

The result was:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "i810"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
Option "UseFBDev" "true"
EndSection

So it looks like the correct driver was installed and xorg.conf configured.

I later found out that 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg' provides less options - just driver and screen resolution.

@Ace: Thanks, I tried manually replacing 'vesa' with 'i810'... it was a disaster - X server wouldn't run at all, so no graphics. I suspect the driver wasn't installed, so manually changing the entry in xorg.conf just meant it pointed to nothing. Or maybe the driver was already there and some of those options needed to be added for it to work.

Either way I'm not mucking with it now to find out... Second Life is running fine (well, as fine as a crappy Intel graphics card will permit!)