Comment 14 for bug 295934

My Dell Latitude 610 was as close to perfect as I could get it under Ubuntu 8.04. The upgrade to 8.10 broke the graphics (most of the cool screensavers, GoogleEarth, LBreakout2). It screwed up VirtualBox: cursor freezes when I start a Virtual Windows XP session and remains onscreen, VitualBox's cursor takes over and is OK, on exit "real cursor" still frozen. It's a USB attached mouse, so I can unplug and replug it and it lives again.

Luckily, I have a Linux and XP partition. I can boot into Windows XP and run GoogleEarth in all it's magnificence, so I know my hardware is just fine.

It's the (expletive deleted) change in something - what, I don't know - that made Ubuntu 8.10 a huge step backwards. I'm totally frustrated.

I've tried all suggestions. I've tried the xserver-configure thing and it starts by asking about Frame buffers. IT NEVER ASKS which driver I would prefer.

Other->OpenGL does nothing.
Other->Screens and Graphics asks for a password. Then does nothing.

I've got a ton of xorg.conf.you-name-it files. I've screwed around in /boot/config-2.6.27-10-generic.

I've "lived" in Ubuntu for about a year. I love much about it; enough to make a few sacrifices. But that damn "other" partition is starting to whisper "Come back to the dark side".

From the threads I've read, this is a very old and unresolved problem with embedded Intel graphics chips. I'm thinking there are a ton of Dell laptop owners that have never seen how great their hardware can actually run. And a few of us that actually got it running somehow for a blessed while, and have been brought crashing back to earth.

I need a new idea to keep me going. Nothing I've found works.