It may happen that you become very annoyed by some behaviour of the version of Intel Linux Graphics Drivers currently shipped with your version of Ubuntu.
For me the last straw that broke the camel’s back was yet another startup crash due to poor support of the Dell Display Port in extended desktop mode.
Here you go how to install the Intel Linux Graphics Intaller on your system to make sure that you are always using the latest drivers available (which usually solves the most of the issues out there).
This is the page where you have to go to download the installer package.
https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads
You can install it simply by opening it with the Ubuntu Software Center or by manually using dpkg -i
$ sudo dpkg -i name-of-the-package.deb
Then open the program and say OK to some easy steps to get the latest drivers on your system (reboot required to get the new drivers working).
The program also adds drivers repositories to your APT sources so that you will get updates for the installed drivers. To let them work you may need to type in a terminal the following two commands in order to import properly the GPG keys of those repositories:
$ wget --no-check-certificate https://download.01.org/gfx/RPM-GPG-KEY-ilg -O - | sudo apt-key add -
$ wget --no-check-certificate https://download.01.org/gfx/RPM-GPG-KEY-ilg-2 -O - | sudo apt-key add - And that’s it, enjoy your brand new drivers which hopefully will solve some of your setup issues!
Keep on tweaking! 😉
PS: a modification to the kernel line may be needed in case the new drivers and modules will mess up with your backlight configuration. The following change shall be made in the /etc/default/grub configuration file with the first line becoming the second one:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_vendor" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash video.use_native_backlight=1"
Sources:
[1] http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/04/intel-release-graphical-installer-for-their-linux-drivers
[2] https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads
[3] http://askubuntu.com/questions/339476/intel-linux-graphic-drivers