I cannot enable desktop effects from system>preferences>appearance. There also seems to be a big problem with my graphics in general, because many times I get a blank screen on booting. I have to reboot in recovery mode, and choose the "run in failsafe graphic mode" or "resume normal boot" and do my work in a simple CLI interface.
My machine has these specs, with a Windows 7/Ubuntu 10.04 dual boot. I was waiting for Oneric hoping that it'll have updated compatibility with my hardware. However, seeing the beta1 preview I have chosen to stick with the LTS for the same reasons I downgraded from 11.04. I have all the basic functionality that I need for work, but graphics is a big issue (black screen on bootup, no desktop effects) to make it my stable primary OS.
As you can realize from my post, I am a Linux n00b. How can I fix my graphics issues? On a sidenote, sometimes even when idle, my laptop begins to make a lot of noise and then subsides. Is this related to my graphics problem, as this doesn't happen on my Windows boot. If so, I really need to fix it. I don't play any games or run Blu-ray or heavy video, etc. (Please tolerate my ignorance as I came to Ubuntu from a Mac background) I did some searching but I can't troubleshoot my problem.
I guess the following output is relevant
lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 0116 (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0dcd (rev a1)