Comment 110 for bug 341898

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This is a copy of my post (with screenshots) on the Ubuntu Forums, here for reference.
link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7375579
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Hi,

MythTV is not displaying any text on the frontend or the backend.
I took three screenshots:

1. http://i626.photobucket.com/albums/tt348/89f5hb/MythTV_no_text_bug_screenshot_1.jpg
2. http://i626.photobucket.com/albums/tt348/89f5hb/MythTV_no_text_bug_screenshot_2.jpg
3. http://i626.photobucket.com/albums/tt348/89f5hb/MythTV_no_text_bug_screenshot_3.jpg

I did a Google search for "mythtv "no text"" and it seems to be a problem for numerous people. Four pages where particularly relevant:
1. [url]http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=394436#2[/url]
2. [url]http://www.mythtvtalk.com/forum/installation-issues/4400-newbie-help-qt-opengl-now-no-text-menu.html[/url]
3. [url]https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MythTV/FAQs#Troubleshooting[/url]
4. [url]https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/universe-bugs/2009-March/061860.html[/url]

I installed msttcorefonts but it didn't help. I tried the command "mythfrontend -O ThemePainter=qt" but it didn't fix it. I then tried "mythfrontend -O ThemePainter=openGL" and I was finally able to see the main menu of MythTV, but all of the configuration menus are still blank.

I have a (legacy) ATI Radeon 9600. Jaunty doesn't have a proprietary ATI legacy driver so I must use the open-source one. I think this may be a cause of the problem because when I used the proprietary driver in Intrepid Ibex the text was visible.

Does anyone have a solution?

P.S. Why aren't links differentiated from plain text? I had to highlight and underline the links manually.

Solved.

The solution is to open the file /etc/mythtv/session-settings as sudo and add the text (excluding square brackets) [export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS="1"] at the bottom. (found on the bug report here: [url]https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+source/mesa/+bug/341898/comments/102[/url])

The first proposed solution was to add the line (excluding square brackets) [Option "DRI" "off"] into the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf under the 'Device' section. This approach makes text visible but it disables DRI, which disables hardware acceleration and makes MythTV run almost unusably slow. (Info from here: [url]http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1154240[/url])

This problem SHOULD be fixed in Ubuntu Karmic Koala, set for release in October 2009.