For future refence, this is an optimus system and you are using the intel GPU even though both GPU's are on at the same time. Installing the nvidia binary drivers breaks 3D for the Intel leading to the 2D desktop after. The images shipped with these systems for lenovo worked around this by a kernel command line option (acpi_osi="!Windows 2009") that pretended to be windows XP so the bios autodetection wouldn't try to use optimus and instead default to just the nvidia GPU. They GPU to use can also be picked in the bios manually on lenovo.
** Summary changed: - [Lenovo W520] Artifacting and other GUI weirdness in Unity env + [sandybridge gt2+] Artifacting and other GUI weirdness in Unity env -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xserver-xorg-video-intel in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/773733 Title: [sandybridge gt2+] Artifacting and other GUI weirdness in Unity env _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp