Comment 384 for bug 541511

I have to say I was highly disappointed in Ubuntu's handling of this error as well. I'm using 9.10 on an older Centrino M 1300 as well for a basic file server, and Lucid was a disaster. I understand the issues involved quite clearly, and understand it's not an easy fix. It would be nice to be able to abandon this issue entirely. However, most of these chipsets are stuck inside laptops, and the reality is that people (myself included) turn to Linux releases like Ubuntu to have modern OS support on these older machines that are still out there running quite well. I for one hate to throw out old hardware when it functions perfectly well for what I need.

Here's the real rub: Lucid is the ONLY Linux release from this time frame that will not run OOB on my 852 setup. That's just nuts to me. It may be an upstream issue, but other distros have dealt with it effectively enough to have a running GUI from the get go. I realize that even WinXP had issues related to this chipset, but even getting to a base GUI is better than nothing for Average Joe. Blank Screen Syndrome is doom incarnate. Period. We can deal with suspend issues and software crashes. But Average Joe needs to get to a GUI first... or even a prompt for that matter. Yes, the other distros I've tried have their issues once they were loaded. But the point is they DID load, into GUI, OOB. Even openSUSE 11.2 (and now 11.3), which is arguably one of the most bloated Linux distros out there, loads onto my machine fine, with KDE 4.x running and useable.

Long rant cut short: Ubuntu devs NEED to look at other working distros to see what workarounds are being plastered into place on major releases like this.