Ubuntu 9.04 - issues with upgrading

Samsung laptop.
All went well using update manager from 8.10 except that I have the bug mentioned here with mythtv not showing any text.

Best fix for this, as of (6/6/09), run mythtv using this command from terminal:

XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS="1" mythfrontend

eee 701
Installed ubuntu net book remix for first time.
Has issue of hanging with a desktop background but no gnome icons. it did work first install when it went straight into netbook desktop, although that seemed jerky. Looks like a gnome windows manager problem.

ibook g4 ppc
Installed using an online upgrade from a 8.04 install disk, via 8.10 then 9.04 upgrade manager installs.
Same issue as with eee.

this post fixed it on the ppc (but not the eee)

drop to a shell using ctrl+alt+F2, then:

sudo dpkg --force all --configure -a