i5 Integrated GMA HD Laptop!

[darkerlink]

I just bought a Dell Inspiron laptop. This is currently being used as a desktop replacement. The CPU is the intel i5 quad core with a GMA HD integrated graphic. I've been searching my hair out and can't find anything related to this specific card and ubuntu. I've installed Karmic and it displays 1600 by 900 fine. The problem Im having is that video played on movie player is extremely choppy. Youtube video is a bit better but not great. I did a system update and my xorg has a -intel prefix.

From time to time, my computer locks up when I perform certain tasks. For eample, glxgears will not display and lock up my computer. Compiz does not work. Im getting extremely frustrated. A brand new computer having trouble with ubuntu?

I've checked System>Administration>Hardware Drivers but there is nothing listed.

Please help!

[phidia]

Probably start a flame war here but-integrated cards and specifically the intels are not seen as very good in performance terms-if compiz doesn't work though perhaps xorg isn't set up correctly? You can look at the Ubuntu community video info here or you may want to look at this guide to be sure your media dependent apps are set up right.

[darkerlink]

I have to disagree because it came with windows 7 out of the box and video ran perfectly on it. Sorry but that link you sent me had no info on the intel GMA HD. I think I have the wrong xorg installed but I'm not sure how to change that. If anyone has experience with this chipset/laptop, please chime in. I've gone off windows for over a year and I dont want to go back!

[Seq]

Probably start a flame war here but-integrated cards and specifically the intels are not seen as very good in performance terms-if compiz doesn't work though perhaps xorg isn't set up correctly? You can look at the Ubuntu community video info here or you may want to look at this guide to be sure your media dependent apps are set up right.

The intel cards are awesome. Sure you can't run certain high-end games on them, but they run OpenGL, Compiz, and other effects perfectly fine (I'm using compiz on an 865 at work, and have used on a 950 and x3100 at home).

[darkerlink]

The intel cards are awesome. Sure you can't run certain high-end games on them, but they run OpenGL, Compiz, and other effects perfectly fine (I'm using compiz on an 865 at work, and have used on a 950 and x3100 at home).

How did you get it to work?

[Seq]

How did you get it to work?

It just does. Older cards have the advantage of being better tested. Your card was released after 9.10 was released, so support is not quite as good. Intel is trying to get driver updates out before the cards, but considering there are bugs with cards that have been out for years, you can imagine issues with supporting unreleased hardware.

[blur xc]

I've always understood that with Linux the latest hardware isn't always the best. If you stay a generation or two behind though, it should run pretty well. If you have to have the latest and greatest- then in some cases it's probably the best bet to stick w/ Windows.

BM

[darkerlink]

It just does. Older cards have the advantage of being better tested. Your card was released after 9.10 was released, so support is not quite as good. Intel is trying to get driver updates out before the cards, but considering there are bugs with cards that have been out for years, you can imagine issues with supporting unreleased hardware.

I added that PPA to my sources and upgraded xserver-xorg-video-intel . Tried to apply desktop effects and it still locks up. I suppose I will just have to wait for Lucid and HOPE it is supported? Sorry for the newbish, when is lucid coming out and do you think intel will have x running by then?

[phidia]

The intel cards are awesome. Sure you can't run certain high-end games on them, but they run OpenGL, Compiz, and other effects perfectly fine (I'm using compiz on an 865 at work, and have used on a 950 and x3100 at home).

At the risk of escalating this "awesome" at what and what does that even mean in quantifiable terms? Integrated cards always perform at much slower fps rates than dedicated cards and if you look at the raw numbers at places like this it will be hard call those cards anything but mediocre.
It's not too surprising that the card performs better using win7 and the driver the laptop and video card man specified for it.

[Seq]

At the risk of escalating this "awesome" at what and what does that even mean in quantifiable terms? Integrated cards always perform at much slower fps rates than dedicated cards and if you look at the raw numbers at places like this it will be hard call those cards anything but mediocre.
It's not too surprising that the card performs better using win7 and the driver the laptop and video card man specified for it.

(Sorry for knocking the thread off-course.)

I noted you can't run high-end games on them. So benchmark bragging and gaming aside, what is the benefit of a dedicated gpu with discrete memory?

The intel cards have a few things going for them: Low power use, open drivers, proper integration with the system, out-of-the-box support (except if your hardware is newer than your OS release -- but hey, same issue with nvidia and fglrx in Ubuntu), and low cost as they are integrated into existing components. When was the last time you cared about the FPS of Firefox? Or gnome-panel? Your flat panel probably only updates at 60Hz anyway, and intel can easily push kwin and compiz that fast. The only desktop-targeted feature they currently lack which I would enjoy is hardware video decoding.

My current laptop has an nvidia 9600m that takes 30+ seconds to re-init the screen on resume, doesn't work with xrandr, the nvidia-settings utility requires a GUI so it can't be scripted or bound to a key, it occasionally doesn't detect external monitors, sometimes corrupts itself when activating an external monitor (if it does detect it). Basically it uses more power to provide a sub-par user experience. So yeah, Intel was pretty awesome for me.

Granted, it's not awesome when it doesn't work, such as the new i5 GPU on 9.10.. And again, sorry for hijacking the thread with my earlier comment (and this reply).