Ubuntu Sound and Video Problems
For the longest time, I’ve had terrible luck with sound and video problems with Ubuntu on a Dell Dimension E521 with nVidia sound and video cards. I thought it was terrible support by nVidia. Everytime I would update my computer, it would totally trash my video settings and sometimes, my sound settings.
Today after doing a bunch of updates, both my video and sound went to crap. With the help of my favorite Linux hacker, Travis, we figured out that I was actually running the server version of the Linux kernel. Next, I uninstalled all instances of the server kernels, uninstalled all nvidia drivers and modules, and rebooted. From there, I followed the basic steps to install nVidia drivers, configured my screen settings and now I am able to run all of the fancy Compiz visuals and my Ubuntu install has never been better.