How to Boost your Intel Card's Performance (Triple!) at Ubuntu Jaunty

Hey guys, if you installed Ubuntu Jaunty and have an intel card you probably have a poor performance compared to Ubuntu Intrepid.As you know glxgears is not a benchmark tool but i jumped from 8xx to 28xx with the steps i will write here.Before the start, you should know that you can revert anything we do here if you don't like it or you don't get a better performance.

This is tested with :

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)


Basically we will enable UXA, upgrade our kernel to 2.6.29.1 and our intel drivers to intel >=2.6.99.903.

I wrote a blog post about enabling UXA at ubuntu Jaunty here.Do what i wrote there.If you have problems like freezing etc, revert it back and continue reading this blog post.Be warned, UXA is very unstable, it might work or Not.(But it is very stable for my hardware).

Now , add this repository to get latest intel drivers :

$sudo nano -w /etc/apt/sources.list

And add these lines/repository :

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Now update and upgrade the system :

$sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

If you have keyserver/signature errors after adding the repository at update part, please read my post here to fix those errors.

Now we will install 2.6.29.1 kernel from here.

You will download (this is for 32bit, if you have 64bit system, download 64bit packages!) :

linux-headers-2.6.29-02062901-generic_2.6.29-02062901_i386.deb
linux-headers-2.6.29-02062901_2.6.29-02062901_all.deb
linux-image-2.6.29-02062901-generic_2.6.29-02062901_i386.deb

$wget -c http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.29.1/linux-headers-2.6.29-02062901-generic_2.6.29-02062901_i386.deb
$wget -c http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.29.1/linux-headers-2.6.29-02062901_2.6.29-02062901_all.deb
$wget -c http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v2.6.29.1/linux-image-2.6.29-02062901-generic_2.6.29-02062901_i386.deb

The packages are ready to install.Go to the folder you have downloaded the files and give this command :

$sudo dpkg -i *.deb

This will NOT upgrade our current kernel, this will install a NEW kernel.So be sure you are starting with this kernel! If you have problems, you can use your old kernel or you can remove it.

PS: DO NOT forget to re-check your sound, bluetooth , wireless etc after restarting with new kernel ;)

PS 2 : If you have problems after enabling UXA, revert it back and continue to kernel and intel driver installation.