Ubuntu 17.10 Fixing Intel Graphics Issue on Medion Akoya e1210

On a fresh Ubuntu install on my old Medion Akoya e1210 netbook with Intel Graphics the screen is

now corrupted. In the past this never caused any issues. I tried a few Ubuntu derivatives (16.04, 17.10, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Mate & Lubuntu), but the issue remains. The classical tip of using "nomodeset" solves the issue, but uses a suboptimal resolution for the display.

This is my configuration:

$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 vga
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GSE Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27ae] (rev 03)
    Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] Mobile 945GSE Express Integrated Graphics Controller [1462:0110]
    Kernel driver in use: i915

I finally found the simple workaround until this is fixed upstream:

• during boot hold down the "shift" key to show the Grub menu
• in "advanced", choose the latest kernel in "recovery" mode
• now continue the boot normally: the GUI will show up correctly when started from recovery.
• open a terminal
• sudo nano /etc/default/grub
• at the end of the file, add the following line:
  GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=text
• save the modified file
• now run
  sudo update-grub

After rebooting, the logon screen should show just fine. 

reference:

• bugtracking ticket: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1724639
• specific workaround: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1724639/comments/39