Problem :
I just don’t know how to describe this and it’s been keeping me from properly Googling…
This is what I see when I boot to the Linux Mint 32-bit LiveCD from a DVD using a DVI video connection using an older PCI graphics card on a machine a friend gave me through a KVM (I don’t think the KVM is the problem though):
How can I make my screen appear more… Normal?
edit the same thing seems to happen with Ubuntu.
Solution :
I was able to solve this by installing Ubuntu LTS (instead of the leading build) and installing without updating.
Then I manually ran the update tool and unchecked everything related to graphics and Unity; I suspect the Unity updates are what caused the problem but I didn’t feel like installing again just to find out.