<SOLVED> HD4000 Integrated Graphics vs Nvidia Graphics Card

[brucknerian]

I have been happily using Isadora 32 bit Gnome on a 4 year old Intel Core 2/Radeon HD2400 desktop. I now intend to buy a new desktop based on an i5 Ivy Bridge processor with HD4000 integrated graphics. I do not play games/watch TV or do anything graphics intensive. My main activity is photo editing (GIMP/RawTherapee etc) and I believe that the integrated graphics will be adequate for my needs. I was planning to use the money saved on a graphics card to fund extra RAM and a better monitor. Obviously I will switch to the latest 64 bit LTS edition of Mint.

My worry is that I have seen some references to what appear to be problems with HD4000 on recent editions of Mint and I do not pretend to understand whether these might be significant for me. This has made me wonder if it would be safer for me to buy a low end Nvidia card as these appear to work without problems. However this does an unnecessary expense and I would welcome any advice. Many thanks in advance!

[xenopeek]

I did the same as you last year. I bought an Intel Sandy Bridge CPU with HD3000 IGP, and used the money saved from having to buy a discrete graphics card to get more RAM and instead of a hard disk went for a SSD (woohoo!). After upgrading to Linux Mint 13 I had some problems with it, but with some friendly help from other users here I managed to solve it rather easily. Just one boot parameter to switch off something (viewtopic.php?f=59&t=113043).

Don't imagine that buying a Nvidia graphics card will not get you problems. Here's Linus Torvalds's opinion on Nivida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcxKINWMD8M. Intel is one of the manufacturers with the best support on Linux; they actively contribute to the Linux kernel, and sponsor and participate in many Linux projects.

So back to your question; we won't leave you to fend for yourself. If you do run into problems with your HD4000, there are a lot of knowledgeable users that can help you make sense of what to do to fix your issue.

[homerscousin]

I am using the Intel HD4000 graphics with Mint 13 KDE 4.9.0. 64 bit. I have 0 complaints. I haven't tried to upgrade anything related to Intel graphics, just KDE. I don't see a need. I have had GIMP open a few times, nothing elaborate. 0 problems. My tv tuner card works fine. Video playback is fine. No games on this rig. Haven't tried any 3d rendering, maybe later. All the effects I use in KDE work as expected. I'm impressed. Much better experience than trying (and failing) to install the Nvidia drivers on my last rig. CPU almost never runs above idle speed of 1.6 ghz for anything mentioned above including 1080p 60 fps video. I think you would be very happy putting the money into ram or other.

Just one caution. There is a bugreport at launchpad. Some desktops may experience hard freezes with older kernels on Ivy Bridge. I did with Unity and Compiz on another distro.