[Tfug] Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic" Alpha4 and the Intel video drivers...

[Jim March]

Folks,

I have a laptop with the mediocre Intel 965/X3100 chipset.  In Ubuntu
Jaunty it ran like a turd until major tweaks were applied, and the
results weren't 100% stable.  Jaunty came out right as the Intel video
support was in flux and Jaunty basically caught about half of what was
needed between the kernel, xorg, Intel driver, Mesa and Compiz.

Karmic has the whole package.  I've been running it for five days now,
ever since alpha4 came out, and it's more solid (and FASTER) than I
ever got out of Jaunty.  I did a full re-install with the alternate
installer (as I use whole disk encryption) and I went with Ext4 - it's
working great.

On a lark I loaded the 64bit Adobe Flash "alpha" and it's rock solid
too - best flash Linux experience I've ever had, period, end of
discussion.

I think Karmic is going to be a really sweet Ubuntu flavor when it
ships and the improvements in Intel video support are so amazingly
vast I'd say anybody with at least moderate technical chops able to
cope with minor pre-release glitches should switch NOW.  I'm told the
fixes also apply perfectly to the Intel 4500 chipset found on the
newest el cheapo laptops.

WARNING: this applies to all Intel video drivers except the GMA500
chipset.  That thing is a major turd and will remain so until the
Ubuntu distro post-Karmic at a minimum.  The most common GMA500
machine is the Dell "mini 10" I think it's called, and for some reason
that thing is an excellent Hackintosh candidate.  While I'm not
normally a proponent of running Apple OSX on non-Apple hardware (as
Apple is actively trying to stomp your install with updates!), the
difference in support for the GMA500 between Linux generally and OSX
is severe enough I'd consider it, at least until Intel helps get the
driver situation under control.  (The issue is, Intel recently bought
the GMA500 tech from another company that was very
Linux-hostile...Intel is getting it sorted out but it's just not done
yet.  That company did do some OSX drivers for Apple...)