FIXED!! Cluttered Fonts in Gnome 3 on Radeon R200 / ATi Radeon Xpress 1200 GPU

Finally!
I was trying for months to get my Dell Latitude XT, containing an ATI Radeon Xpress 1200 GPU to render the gnome-shell aka gnome3 without cluttered fonts in the panel.

I tried various versions and patches, but all one has to do is patch the mesa package with this patch:

 https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=46709

I got it from here:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=35998

Since I do not really know what I do and I have problems to upload it to AUR, I post the description here in case someone has similar problems.

THIS GUIDE IS FOR ARCH LINUX USERS WITH A RADEON R200 GPU AND PROBLEMS WITH FONTS IN GNOME-SHELL
  

• Install the ArchBuildSystem abs   "sudo pacman -S abs base-devel"

• Install missing dependancies "sudo pacman -S flex bison"
• Copy the pkgbuild to tmp "cp -r /var/abs/extra/mesa /tmp/"
• goto the directory "cd /tmp/mesa"
• download the sources "makepkg -o"
• edit the file according to the patch ("gedit src/?esa-*/src/gallium/drivers/r300/r300_texture_desc.c") go to the lines with {{32,1 and {{8,1 and change them to {{32,2 and {{8,2
• build the package "makepkg -e"
• drink a cup of coffe
• install all the packages you need (try sudo pacman -U *.pkg.tar.xz and see which packages are displayed as reinstall, cancel and then run pacman -U <all packages which were displayed as reinstall>
• restart

I have created a PKGBUILD with the patch and also a source package, but AUR does not accept it, I think this is because it produces more than one package. If someone has time and knowledge, feel free to provide an easier AUR solution.

For the Ubuntu Guys: If you have the same problem, there is a mechanism for dpkg to get source packages and recompile. Just google it and apply the patch.

Fingerprint Reader Ubuntu Natty Dell Latitude XT

Just do these in a terminal:

# Install packages
sudo apt-get install libpam-thinkfinger
# Enable the uinput kernel module to load on boot
echo -e "# For thinkfinger to work\nuinput" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules > /dev/null
# Create a pam profile to enable fingerprint authentication for login and sudo
cat << EOF | sudo tee /usr/share/pam-configs/thinkfingermanualinstall > /dev/null
Name: Manually installed thinkfinger pam profile
Default: yes
Priority: 900
Auth-Type: Primary
Auth:
        [success=end default=ignore]    pam_thinkfinger.so
EOF
# Enable the pam profile
sudo pam-auth-update --package thinkfingermanualinstall
# Register your fingerprints for the currently logged in user
sudo tf-tool --acquire

sudo cp ~/.thinkfinger.bir /etc/pam_thinkfinger/$USER.bir

Problem: Fingerprint doesnt work on Gnome Keyring:

Solution: (UNSECURE!!!) Set gnome keyring password to empty

(delete the folder .gnome2/keyrings and next time you will be asked)

Problem: Fingerprint doesnt work on Screensaver/Lockscreen

Solution: Follow this tutorial http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_enable_the_fingerprint_reader_with_ThinkFinger#xscreensaver.2Fgnome-screensaver

Ubuntu Natty 11.04 and Dell Latitude XT

Just got my Dell Latitude XT from eBay and now trying to make it do everything i want.

So far:
Natty installs pretty easy, pen and single touch works out of the box.

Problem 1:
No bootable device, but if you select F12-Boot menu and select hard drive it boots

Solution:
Go to BIOS and in Boot-Order make sure you activated the harddisk with "space". You will see a number displayed in front of the device name if its activated

Problem 2:
Multitouch does not work.  If you type "xinput --list" in a terminal, just touchscreen is displayed, not multitouch. This means, firmware is not up to date....

I am installing Win7 right now to update the firmware and then i will report.

So... took a while, but was worth it. I installed win7, had to perform a BIOS upgrade and then installed the latest Ntrig drivers from the dell website. I rebooted twice to be sure and then started natty live cd and... tada! multitouch is working. If you type xinput --list you see now there is the multitouch screen recognized and moving the window with 3 fingers works.

Problem 3: Multitouch screen somtimes makes random mouse clicks !!!

Solution:
1. Upgrade firmware to the one from the Ntrig website for latest windows 7 (not the dell website) So, currently im using Firmware 4.9.15.13.7 instead of  4.5.2.3.5.
This alone doesnt remove the mouseclicks, but now the ntrig-calibrator from: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Multitouch/Calibration/Ntrig

works. So if the mouseclicks appear, run the calb.sh as root and dont touch the screen while calib is running. Afterwards it works like a charm.

Problem 4: Unity sucks! its not that bad, but it always crashes.
Solution: install gnome3 (warning, this will make unity unusable, and its also not that stable, so its just if you really want gnome3) You will find the commands at google, basically install the gnome3 repository and upgrade and install gnome-shell.
Then use ginn for customizing your gestures... works good as soon as you experiment with the "gesturetest" utility and write a nice wishes.xml

Problem 5: ginn crashes on java applications (at least jarnal doesnt work)

Solution: still looking for it ...