Intel® HD 4000 integrated graphics drivers for Linux

[idata]

Hi!

I just bought an ultrabook with an Intel® HD 4000 integrated graphics card.

I'm using Ubuntu, but the open source driver takes a lot of CPU and has some issues from time to time.

I'd like to know when is Intel planning to release the driver for Linux. Is there any beta that I can try?

Thanks in advance!

[powerarmour]

What issues are you having?

As far as I'm aware, the current Mesa driver is the 'official' driver, and I have to say generally works pretty damn well, better then any other Linux graphics driver, bar the official binary blob Nvidia driver.

There have been lots of fixes upstream for the Mesa drivers recently :-

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI3OTM [Phoronix] Intel Releases Its 19th Driver In The 2.20 Series

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI3OTc [Phoronix] Intel Driver To Play A Bit Better With S3TC Compression

It may be worth just updating to the latest source, and trying that out tbh.

[idata]

powerarmour, thanks for answering!

Basically, the problems I'm seeing are:

• High CPU usage by compiz, resulting in low battery performance and the computer overheating.
• Sometimes X fails to start. I have to login through command line and restart it.
• Sometimes I can't change the screen brightness.
• Few resolution options with multiple monitors.

I'm using Ubuntu 12.10 with the latest updates (latest linux core, unity version and drivers)

[powerarmour]

Alf wrote:

powerarmour, thanks for answering!

Basically, the problems I'm seeing are:

• High CPU usage by compiz, resulting in low battery performance and the computer overheating.
• Sometimes X fails to start. I have to login through command line and restart it.
• Sometimes I can't change the screen brightness.
• Few resolution options with multiple monitors.

I'm using Ubuntu 12.10 with the latest updates (latest linux core, unity version and drivers)

Hi Alf,

The High CPU usage in Compiz could either be a driver or Compiz 6 issue in 12.10, I've used Ubuntu 12.04 LTS fine on an Ivy Bridge with the Ubuntu-X PPA and the older Compiz 5 works smoother and lighter with that. There have been some Compiz updates recently to change fullscreen redirect to default, and some of the patches aren't perfect yet.

The X failing to start is a known issue in lightdm, which should hopefully be solved soon (also, only seems to affect Ubuntu 12.10 :- https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lightdm/+bug/969489 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lightdm/+bug/969489 )

Brightness & resolution options can be tricky and have multiple causes, but I'd say that Ubuntu 12.10 isn't quite as polished as 12.04 in general, and I'd lean towards rolling back or upgrading to the latest daily 13.04 (which is very fast and slick in regards to Unity performance), or run a more bleeding edge PPA like xorg-edgers in 12.10.

[idata]

I guess I'll downgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS then.

Thank you very much for your help!

[idata]

ALL of the issues were gone with a clean install of 12.04.

Thanks again powerarmour!

[powerarmour]

Alf wrote:

ALL of the issues were gone with a clean install of 12.04.

Thanks again powerarmour!

No problem

But yes it's a shame that 12.10 does have a few issues, and aside from the kernel and the Amazon integrated rubbish (which luckily is easily removed), 12.04 is pretty much the same, only far more stable and usable. I'd rather run 12.04 as a base myself, and then run the 3.5 kernel backport with it, plus the Ubuntu-X PPA, that seems to be a good balance of newish kernel/drivers, with a more solid software base.