Newbie questions: Intel 82852/82855 Graphics driver & Blurry Screen [SOLVED]

[homoludens]

Hi everyone,

I installed Feisty last week on my laptop and have been playing around with it a bit. Absolutely fantastic, what a great operating system!

2 questions, however, I came across while trying to customize my installation:

(1) My graphics card is an Intel(R) 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller 6.14.10.3937 (Intel(R) Extreme Graphics 2 for Mobile). Under Windows it is running under a 1400 x 1050 resolution, but under Kubuntu I can apparently only get up to 1200 x 1024.
Can anyone tell me how to install the right graphics card driver (and where to get it), so that I can get the full resolution?

(2) Related to my first question: The screen in general and the fonts in particular seem blurry and are sometimes hard to read. I've been browsing the forum, and there are several related postings, although none seems to offer a good solution.
What exactly is responsible for the blurriness? Is it the graphics card driver? Or the subpixel rendering used by the system? Or the fonts used under Kubuntu?
How can I get a crisp screen comparable to the one I got under Windows?

Thanks a lot for your help!

[dibl]

Re: Newbie questions: Intel 82852/82855 Graphics driver & Blurry Screen

Since you are in "experimentation" mode, and don't sound like you have a lot of critical data on that Linux installation, I'll throw a different notion out for your consideration.

In the Gutsy version, for reasons unknown to me, they have put all kinds of packaged video drivers into the standard repositories and then these are automatically installed on your system when you install the OS. It doesn't sound like the classical "minimalist" Linux approach, but that's what it does. And Gutsy Beta seems to be very happy and stable on my hardware, and many others report likewise.

So, I'm thinking you might shortcut the energy to "fix up" that Feisty installation by just making a Gutsy Beta CD and installing from that. The Intel driver may find and configure your display chip better, in the process. If you run the updates between now and Oct 18, then when it is officially released you'll already have the released version on your laptop.

If you do decide to go this way, I noticed that I had a problem when I tried to install Gutsy Beta over the top of the prior Gutsy Tribe 5 filesystem. But after I used a GParted Live CD to format that partition, and then booted the Gutsy Alternate Install CD, everything went very smooth and error-free.

[homoludens]

Re: Newbie questions: Intel 82852/82855 Graphics driver & Blurry Screen

dibl,

thanks for the tip. I installed Gutsy yesterday evening -- it looks fantastic! Obviously the problem was mainly related to the graphics driver ...

Cheers.

[dibl]

Re: Newbie questions: Intel 82852/82855 Graphics driver & Blurry Screen

Excellent -- very good to hear it's working right now.

Would you please mark the Subject "SOLVED" so it will be obvious to others with a similar problem?

Thank you!

[homoludens]

Re: Newbie questions: Intel 82852/82855 Graphics driver & Blurry Screen

hum, stupid question, how do i mark the subject "solved"? is that the lock/unlock button at the bottom?