I managed to mostly solve the problem; on page 5 of the link paxman1 posted (http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3098015.60) someone named ilowman suggested going to System Settings->Advanced->Service Manager and turning off "Detecting RANDR (monitor) changes"
The effect was immediate; my screen now flickers only when loading KDE4.1, and when opening System Settings->Display. This seems to solve the glitches where the screen briefly redraws in a shifted position from normal; the people at that link seemed to think there are two kinds of graphical glitches going on here.
One downside, however, is that while I can still switch screen resolutions to 1024x768 (and possibly others) I cannot switch back; I lost my first draft of this comment when X restarted instead.
I managed to mostly solve the problem; on page 5 of the link paxman1 posted (http:// kubuntuforums. net/forums/ index.php? topic=3098015. 60) someone named ilowman suggested going to System Settings- >Advanced- >Service Manager and turning off "Detecting RANDR (monitor) changes"
The effect was immediate; my screen now flickers only when loading KDE4.1, and when opening System Settings->Display. This seems to solve the glitches where the screen briefly redraws in a shifted position from normal; the people at that link seemed to think there are two kinds of graphical glitches going on here.
One downside, however, is that while I can still switch screen resolutions to 1024x768 (and possibly others) I cannot switch back; I lost my first draft of this comment when X restarted instead.