Tip: How to Solve Garbled Text Problems Under Linux?

Wondering how to solve NetBeans IDE and, generally, Java editor problems when scrolling down large files under Linux? Sometimes, under those conditions, the text becomes garbled, distorted, or scrambled. I am sure one image will say more than a thousand words, so here... we... go:

If you are experiencing this kind of behavior, in your application, IDE, or any kind of editor, don't worry! It is a misconfiguration of your video device and you can come across it in several Java applications.

Just to track the problem, some issues were filed against NetBeans Issuezilla, at which point it was identified as a invalid issue, since it is a video card misconfiguration. After some searches and tests, I realized how to solve the problem. I am currently using Ubuntu 8.10, with a Mobile Intel X3100 video card, which was automatically configured by Ubuntu in my xorg.conf file as below:

 
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

The first step to solve the problem is to know which display controller you are using. To get it, I used the "lspci" command line tool, where the Display controller property shows you the info you need. Now, you just need to edit your "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" file with the code that follows... and don't forget to backup your current "xorg.conf" file first:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller"
Option          "AccelMethod"           "xaa"
Option          "RenderAccel"           "true"
EndSection

...where "Identifier" should be your display controller. Now you just need restart your X server and then get back to work. For details about this solution, see this discussion and comments are really appreciated.

Another alternative is to add a new property for the JDK:

-Dsun.java2d.pmoffscreen=false

This should fix it too. Happy coding!

From http://www.michelgraciano.com