Hello and hardware

[Declan McGrath]

Hi folks,

Haven't caught up with a lot of ye guys in a while as I've had to curtail my
geek excursions this year. Hope your all keeping well. I have still been
evangelising the word of Ubuntu! And it's actually let me into a wee bit of
a problem on the hardware front.

I have a friend who I'm helping buy a decent ubuntu compatible laptop and
they want to know that Unity 3D, hi def movies and features like that will
work. But basically it's a little depressing that even though I should be
better equipped than your average bear to help make this decision, I'm
really struggling :(

I've tweeted this question recently and Laura kindly pointed me towards the
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuFriendly programme and from there I ended up
at the http://www.ubuntu.com/certification page which lists a whole bunch of
hardware. This was very useful. The Inspiron 15R caught my eye as it might
be a goer http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201010-6645 For the
video chipset it says "Video Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated
Graphics Controller" was used in the test. Now I am looking at the 15R on
the Dell website and it comes with a Intel HD Graphics 3000. I take that
this is what was used in the Ubuntu certification test, correct? So I
proceed along those lines.

With more researching I came across this very useful thread
http://askubuntu.com/questions/18843/best-graphics-card-for-ubuntu It seems
to say forget about NVIDIA unless you want your laptop to go on fire - stick
with Intel graphics cards.

This thread suggests that some people are having trouble with Intel HD
Graphics 3000 - but just about overcoming it, especially with 11.04 Natty
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1706846

But then this other thread seems to be quite negative
http://askubuntu.com/questions/39527/poor-performance-with-intel-hd-3000-gpu

Am I going the completely wrong way about this? I literally am starting from
the point of wanting to run Ubuntu on a laptop, I have licence to recommend
any reasonably priced laptop to my friend and when they ask me if they can
run Ubuntu graphics well on any candidate I find I cannot say "Yes we can!"

Any help greatly appreciated. I will even buy you two pints the next time I
meet you. Hopefully, that won't be too long!

Keep on hackin,
Dec
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