Gnome shell not getting along with Nvidia 173

To sum it up, gnome shell won't open if I have the proprietary nvidia 173 driver installed. It would open to the desktop background with desktop icons, but nothing else. ALT-F2 wouldn't work either. Since I had a terminal icon on my desktop, I could open the terminal. The Gnome 3 desktop does open, however, when I'm using the Nouveau firmware instead, but the panels and fonts are all garbled. The nvidia 173-updates driver works with Ubuntu desktop, Enlightenment, Mate, and Gnome-classic, but not as well as the nvidia 173 driver. I tried having both the nvidia 173 and Nouveau firmware installed at the same time and there was no change from just having the nvidia 173 installed.

Nvidia-current broke a previous install of Mint 12 when I was trying to find a solution to this problem, so I reinstalled. While I was googling for some solution, I ran across a posting somewhere where the person was having some problem similar to this one, and it was suggested that they upgrade to the 3.1 linux kernel. I did that and was left with the "Fatal server error: no screens found." I googled around for a solution for that, but soon realized that even if I found out how to fix that, I'd still have the original problems. So I just reinstalled.

I guess I could try the nvidia 185 driver.

With the nvidia 173 driver installed, I googled up the Mint tutorial, http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/641. When I used CTRL+ALT+F1, the terminal fonts were so garbled that I had to reboot --(what's the terminal command for "logout?)-- and use the terminal in Mate:

randymanme@randymanme-Dimension-8300 ~ $ w
05:34:21 up 49 min, 1 user, load average: 0.08, 0.10, 0.18
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
randyman pts/0 :0 05:34 1.00s 0.56s 0.01s w
randymanme@randymanme-Dimension-8300 ~ $

Then I had to logout and go back to the non-functioning Gnome to execute
export DISPLAY=:0
gnome-shell --replace

Then the terminal messages were: "(gnome-shell:3720) St-WARNING **: percentage lengths not currently supported Window manager warning: Log level 16: NOTE: not using GLX TFP!

Window manager warning: Log level 16: NOTE: not using GLX TFP!

(gnome-shell:3720): Cog1-WARNING **: ./cog1-framebuffer.c:924: Failed to create an OpenGL framebuffer

(gnome-shell:3720): Cog1-WARNING **: ./cog1-framebuffer.c:924: Failed to create an OpenGL framebuffer

(gnome-shell:3720): Cog1-WARNING **: ./cog1-framebuffer.c:924: Failed to create an OpenGL framebuffer

gnome-shell-calender-server [3734]: HUP on stdin-exiting
Segmentation fault"

Then CTRL+ALT+F7 to switched back to the display, there'd be no panels or desktop icons, just the background. I'd have to CTRL+ALT+F7 for the terminal, and then sudo init 6 to restart.

I don't know if this bit of extra information will help (I know I need to start another thread), but Gnome 3's top and bottom panels are garbled, as are the fonts inside the shell and mint menu.

There are no such problems with the Ubuntu or Ubuntu 2d login options; I just like Mint 12's version of gnome shell better than Unity. When I was hosting Mint 12 on virtualbox with Mint 11, Mint 12 ran more or less perfectly. I just assumed that a physical install would be better because it would be running on a full one GB of ram instead of the guest and host splitting one GB of ram.

I've also gotten a gnome/openbox login option that works just fine except that it's not gnome shell, it's ubuntu 2d!

And, finally, let me add (for the sake of more information), that in frustration, I burned a live cd of fedora 16 to check out it's gnome shell and I had the same problems with the garbled panels; the fonts were okay but were missing letters out of words. I know by it happening with both Mint 12 and Fedora 16, that evidence points to my hardware as being the problem, but it only happens with gnome 3 shell.

Anyway, as always, any and all help and advice will be much appreciated. Thanks.