Installed Blender 2.56.34784 from OpenSUSE 11.4 64-bit repository on HP Pavilion DV6-6113cl with Intel HD 3000 graphics controller. When Blender starts, the viewport flickers occasionally and has artifacts. Fiddle with the interface much at all and Blender crashes, takes KDE with it and leaves you on the login screen. I've tried running gdb on Blender to get a backtrace, but since it dumps you out of KDE, I can't get any information. When I check log files, I found this at /var/log/kdm.log:

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X.Org X Server 1.9.3
Release Date: 2010-12-13
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: openSUSE SUSE LINUX
Current Operating System: Linux linux-77wr 2.6.37.6-0.7-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2011-07-21 02:17:24 +0200 x86_64
Kernel command line: root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA_MK5076GSX_61JGP1WYT-part6 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-TOSHIBA_MK5076GSX_61JGP1WYT-part5 splash=silent quiet vga=0x317
Build Date: 07 June 2011 02:49:07AM

Current version of pixman: 0.20.0
Before reporting problems, check X.Org Wiki - Home
to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Tue Aug 2 15:35:00 2011
(==) Using config directory: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d"
/etc/X11/xdm/Xsetup: line 114: /usr/bin/hal-find-by-property: No such file or directory
/etc/X11/xdm/Xstartup: line 30: /usr/bin/hal-find-by-property: No such file or directory

Backtrace:
0: /usr/bin/Xorg (xorg_backtrace+0x28) [0x483068]
1: /usr/bin/Xorg (0x400000+0x5e6d9) [0x45e6d9]
2: /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x7fa5699ff000+0x32b30) [0x7fa569a31b30]
3: /usr/lib64/dri/i965_dri.so (0x7fa566e58000+0x42ad0) [0x7fa566e9aad0]
4: /usr/lib64/dri/i965_dri.so (0x7fa566e58000+0x362a4) [0x7fa566e8e2a4]
5: /usr/lib64/dri/i965_dri.so (0x7fa566e58000+0x387aa) [0x7fa566e907aa]
6: /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so (0x7fa568896000+0x35ff3) [0x7fa5688cbff3]
7: /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so (0x7fa568896000+0x38793) [0x7fa5688ce793]
8: /usr/bin/Xorg (0x400000+0x52561) [0x452561]
9: /usr/bin/Xorg (0x400000+0x25ace) [0x425ace]
10: /lib64/libc.so.6 (__libc_start_main+0xfd) [0x7fa569a1dbfd]
11: /usr/bin/Xorg (0x400000+0x25679) [0x425679]
Segmentation fault at address 0x40

Fatal server error:
Caught signal 11 (Segmentation fault). Server aborting

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I'm no Linux expert, so I'm only guessing this has something to do with the event.

Everything about this installation has gone smoothly: desktop effects are responsive and smooth, etc. Except Blender. I ran glxgears and that worked well, although I know it doesn't really diagnose much.

If someone could provide some help, it would be greatly appreciated. This is my wife's brand-new laptop, we aren't thrilled about integrated graphics, but it is what she could afford, and she is really desperate to get Blender to run. Please help.

This indicates that Blender is exposing a bug in the Intel X driver. Have you tried disabling Desktop Effects prior to launching Blender?

Thanks for your response.

I turned off Desktop Effects and this did indeed prevent the crash to the login screen. But as she has continued to work with the system, problems persist. Frequently, within Blender, a right mouse click will cause the program to crash, though KDE continues to run. We have also noticed that if she leaves Blender or Inkscape running for long enough, even in the background, the screen will lock up. In these instances, you can move the cursor with trackpad, mouse or graphics tablet, but clicking has no effect. Ctrl-alt-esc will not allow you to kill programs, so we resort to ctrl-alt-backspace to restart X.

Is there something more we can do to alleviate this situation? Is there more information that we can collect to help diagnose the problem?

That sounds like the Intel graphics driver has managed to hang the GPU. If you check the content of "dmesg" or kernel log (usually available on VT10) then you will probably see stacks of messages from the Intel driver regarding that.

As that is a relatively new chipset (Sandy Bridge I think) then it may be worth upgrading to something newer than openSUSE 11.4.