I own a Lenovo Thinkpad X200s with Intel GMA X4500 series graphics chip that I wanted to use with an additional monitor for some time. Because this chipset is quite new, it didn't perform well in gNewSense 2.1 which is based on Ubuntu Hardy. So I settled with the then just released Debian Lenny because it was stable and easy to free. (I just needed to replace the kernel with a Linux-libre build, Iceweasel with GNU IceCat and stick to the main repo.)

With the recent news of beta releases from Fedora and Ubuntu, I decided to see how far the graphics support has come. So, I downloaded live ISO images of Fedora 11 Beta and Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" Beta and created bootable USB images with FUSBi.

Fedora supported kernel mode-setting and booted in the new flickerless boot sequence. I could enable 3D graphics without trouble. However, it didn't support a dual monitor setup out-of-the-box.

Ubuntu Jaunty, on the other hand, supported my dual monitor setup. However, there was significant tearing in video playback and no 3D support.

Since all of my hardware (including on-board graphics and Atheros-based wireless networking adapter) relies on free software, the results should be same if I  were to replace both distributions' kernels with completely free ones.

The support for my graphics chip certainly seems to have improved significantly over the last months, but it's far from being complete. I wish Intel would have cared more about providing free software support for its graphics chipset series that have been widely distributed for about a year now.

On a side note, spending some time on these standard GNOME environments made me realize how much I have been relying on my tiling window manager of choice for speedy window management.