Ubuntu – Unity 3d Not supported, Intel 945GM graphics card

I have just installed Ubuntu 11.10 on my computer, and everything seems to run great. Well, almost. At log on, I can select from the settings the Ubuntu desktop (not ubuntu 2d).

Compiz configuration manager didn't seem to be doing anything to my unity 3d desktop. So, just to check, I run:

echo $DESKTOP_SESSION

Sure enough it tells me I'm running unity 2d. Does the fact that 3d wont run mean that my video driver will not support unity 3d?

I have an Intel 945GME chipset, and tried to find information about drivers, but any fixes and workarounds all seemed to be for older versions of ubuntu, and did not work (or I didn't do it right, I am after all a new linux user).

After messing around with all that, I did a fresh install and just tried again to see if compiz settings manager would do anything, but I can't get Unity 3d to work. To describe my process the second time around:

First do a fresh install, then as soon as that's done install the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:paullo612/unityshell-rotated
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install unityshell-rotated libnux-1.0-0 compizconfig-settings-manager

I wanted to intall the unity rotated plugin (I can't stand having the launcher on the left side for some reason, but I really like the concept of the launcher, and don't really want to switch to gnome, which also didn't look right when I tried it). But neither unity rotated nor unity 3d are going to work for me if I have an issue with my hardware or drivers, will they?

If it is a video card driver/hardware issue, its not showing in normal use. Viewing of flash videos isn't as good as it was when I was running windows on this machine, but its not bad. Maybe just a little bit streaky. Not enough to really bother me a lot. My video card is certainly working to that extent, but it can do better.

There are no additional drivers that ubuntu finds for my computer at all.

Running unity_support_test results in these errors:

nathan@Vaio:~$ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p
OpenGL vendor string:   Mesa Project
OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer
OpenGL version string:  2.1 Mesa 7.11

Not software rendered:    no
Not blacklisted:          yes
GLX fbconfig:             yes
GLX texture from pixmap:  no
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

So far, my card still doesn't work. It seems strange Devius, that your computer all of a sudden works. I am running Kernel 3.0.0-15.

Maybe this can help somebody solve this issue: Maybe my graphics card is not configured? There is no xorg.conf file in its proper directory — should there be? Supposedly the file is supposed to be there, but on my system, its simply missing

All of the software sources are enabled in the software center.

So, I am reaching out to the linux community. Any suggestions?