as part of my job i need reasonably good graphics to be able to run virtual world clients (reasonable, i’m not too greedy). when i recently got an upgrade from my “old” thinkpad x60 to a fairly new x200 with an intel GM45 inside, i was really looking forward to it improved graphics performance¹. after a bit of research it seemed that only the latest kubuntu 08.10 would fully support the graphics card.

so, after downloading the ISO image of the kubuntu 08.10 alternate boot CD² i installed it on the new x200 — after about 30min or so i had the base system installed and was ready to copy in my backed up home, project and source directories. a first glance and apt-get update; apt-get upgrade revealed: KDE4.1 was running. interesting…

…and it quickly transpired: KDE4.1, while all glamorous and flashy (lots of blink here, there, and there, there, and there) was not really on par with the powerful and versatile workhorse KDE 3.5, not at all:

• no desktop icons
• thinkpad keys (fn-f4 et al) not really working (fn returns XF86WakeUp for some strange reason)
• trying to change screen setup via system settings was a complete failure: user interface utterly confusing and apparently itself confused about the available displays (i was just trying to enable the 1600x1200 TFT and place it “next” to the x200’s LCD)
• trying to accomplish the desired display configuration via xrandr resulted in a nice and ugly crash of kwin

hmm…okaayyy. perhaps we can live with this as the intel 5100/5300 WLAN interface is working nicely…well, kind of: knetwork manager really didn’t like our company internal WLAN setup and just ignored it. not good. but then, nothing to really blame on kubuntu 08.10: knetwork manager never liked our WLAN, not in kubuntu 08.04 nor in kubuntu 07.04 — googling around once more for a possible replacement i stumble over wicd.

wicd turns out to be quite flexible and we can even add authentication schemes — it’s rather simple to add support for our internal WLAN.

next, i check whether on the secondlife client: it somehow seems a bit sluggish…well, sluggish seems to be a bit of and understatement: it’s downright jerky. running glxgears it turns out that i’m getting about 300fps — just 300fps! ouch. very ouch. turns out (k)ubuntu 8.10 has a problem with intel based GPUs.

the suggested workarounds just don’t cut it and actually result in a very unstable system: enabling the external monitor still crashes kwin; running the secondlife client sometimes works, sometimes it crashes the X server, sometimes it just causes a frozen system; suspending always kill the X server :-( — a final attempt at upgrading to KDE 4.2beta just results in keybindings not working across reboots. :-(

so, i decide to try running kubuntu 8.04.01 on the X200:

• X performance: consistently over 1200fps, sweet :-)
• intel 5100/5300 WLAN: not working at first, installing the drivers from the intel linux wireless at first works, but once i try a suspend i get an ugly kernel crash — worse: on booting it crashes as well

still, WLAN can be worked around by using a USB WLAN — so, i reboot, remove the WLAN driver from the system, apply a kernel update that just became available (2.6.26-23) and reboot…

…and am utterly and completely amazed when i call up wicd to connect to the office ethernet: apparently the latest kernel update brought with it support for the intel 5100/5300 :-)

so, the latest kubuntu 08.04.01 works like a charm on the x200.

• kubuntu 08.10 on x200: keep away from it (in general even)
• kubuntu 08.04.01 on X200: recommended.