I recently installed Ubuntu 12.04 on a HP Pavilion dv4 laptop. This is a core i7 machine with Intel HD graphics and also a separate nVidia VGA card. I had a lot of issues getting Ubuntu 12.04 working on this system. First there were issues booting up the live CD for installation. I worked around that by using the 'nomodeset' option. Then I continued to have similar issues after installation has completed. So I had to permanently add the nomodeset option to my GRUB boot configuration. At the moment I have a working installation but there are many issues:

1. Ubuntu GUI is a bit flaky at times. The mouse pointer goes on and off when hovering over certain icons. Certain things doesn't get rendered properly on the screen.

2. I can't access any of the tty consoles. Hitting Ctrl+Alt+F[1-6] gives me a blank screen. And once that happens I can't even come back to the UI by hitting Ctrl+Alt+F7. I've realized that tty consoles are actually working. I just can't see the text. If I enter a command like 'sudo reboot' into the empty screen the machine reboots.

3. Can't get external displays (monitors, projectors etc) working. But I think this is probably because the VGA out is wired to the nVidia card which is not being used by Linux.

4. colord program crashes every now and then triggering a popup message.

So my main question is, will the support for Intel HD graphics be improved in the next release? Or will I have to keep using the nomodeset option in the new release too? Also I appreciate if anybody can shed some light on any of the issues listed above.

Thanks in advance.