How do I tell if Ubuntu supports hardware-accelerated graphics on my laptop?

Question

The new Gnome 3.0 requires hardware acceleration support. I wanted to try it out -- but how do I tell whether hardware acceleration is supported on my machine?

Answer 1

Gnome-Shell has very similar graphical requirements as the Unity interface. Therefore, if you want a quick test of potential compatibility, you could run the unity graphical test application via a live CD:

/usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p

If you get a picture similar to this with all "yes" values - you probably can assume Gnome-Shell will work.

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Linked Question:

1. What do the "no"s mean, in the output of unity support test?

Answer 2

Well the best way of course is to just try it out ;)

Try a quick search through the ubuntu forums for you computers model number.

And the Ubuntu-certified hardware list might help as well.