Comment 46 for bug 1180646

Installing Intel Graphics Updates from ubuntu-x-swat seems to fix this problem: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/intel-graphics-updates
It features the open source Intel graphics stack 12.07 release.

While it doesn't seem to be too stable, there are no problems (including invisible icons) with a fresh install of cairo-dock version 3.2.1 from the launchpad ppa. The problems reappear when a ~/.config/cairo-dock/ directory is ported from another existing system, and this even causes kwin to crash. I will use cairo dock further and add/remove icons and applets to see if the drivers are stable.

My driver details after installing the graphics stack updates are as follows:

equilibrium@equbook:~$ lsmod | grep "^i"
iwlwifi 401148 0
i915 478239 2
i2c_algo_bit 13423 1 i915
equilibrium@equbook:~$ sudo lshw -C display
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Ivy Bridge Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:47 memory:f0000000-f03fffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:3000(size=64)
equilibrium@equbook:~$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 0x301)
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 9.0.1
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20
OpenGL extensions: