I have recently installed (clean install) Ubuntu 12.10 on a desktop PC with nVIDIA GeForce MX440 (AGP 8x) and I have problems with Unity. Although I can see the desktop, however i can't see unity bar and icons. So, I decided to install lubuntu-desktop to see the performance. And yes! I choose lubuntu-desktop from Log On screen and the performance is definetely much better and has nothing to do with the aforementioned on unity.
The system has native drivers from the Ubuntu installation. I didn't touch anything in xorg configuration.
I also remember that I have managed to have the best performance with this graphic card on my previous Ubuntu 9.10 system, by editing some values in /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. But I can't remember that options, because I formatted the / partition!
My question is: Which is the most suitable driver for this card, in order to load the unity feature and have better performance on it?
Best Answer
That graphics card will not work very well. NVIDIA no longer maintains working drivers for MX 200/400. The oldest you could reasonably go to for support is a 6 Series (6xxx) card.
My advice is to install Xubuntu or Lubuntu, or install gnome-panel and run on the classic style interface :)