Ubuntu desktop freezes sometimes

Question

After having installed Ubuntu 14.10 freshly, I still have the same error that I already had in 14.04 and 12.04. The desktop sometimes just freezes. To use the desktop again I press Ctrl+Alt+F8 and then Ctrl+Alt+F7 to basically reload the desktop. I tried around a bit, installing Unity, KDE4, Gnome 3, Mate, Cinnamon, xfce, and I get the same error with all desktops. I still can continue my work, but it is truely annoying and I believe I am not the only one out there having this problem.

I already did some research, but have not found anything helpful.

My laptop is a Dell XPS with a Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU and an NVIDIA GF116M [GeForce GT 555M/635M].

Is anybody familiar with this apparent bug?

[EDIT]:

The output of lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 VGA is:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0116] (rev 09)
        Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0571]
        Kernel driver in use: i915
--
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GF116M [GeForce GT 555M/635M] [10de:124d] (rev a1)
        Subsystem: Dell GeForce GT 555M [1028:0571]
        Kernel driver in use: nvidia

Solution

The solution to this problem is in wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee.

Easily done by running the following command:

sudo apt-get install bumblebee bumblebee-nvidia primus linux-headers-generic
sudo reboot

Comments

[JoKeR]

are you using proprietary driver? add the output lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 VGA

[Socrates]

I used the recommended driver that is offered after the installation by the desktop environment. (Edit above)

[JoKeR]

run in terminal prime-select nvidia and then prime-select query to check if it says nvidia and reply. Also you might wanna look here wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee

[atmelino]

I think you're correct to suspect something hardware/graphics driver related since the bug shows up in different OS versions. Apparently you have a hybrid graphics system with an Intel and an Nvidia GPU. You might want to try the Bumblebee Project: wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee

[Socrates]

Thank you @JohnnyEnglish and atmelino for your answers. Bumblebee provided the answer to me. I answered to my posting and will mark it as the adequate answer in 17h from now on.

[Elder Geek]

possible duplicate of askubuntu.com/questions/549915/…

[Pankhuri]

Had same issue with propiertary drivers. Bumblebee did the trick. Install primus aswell..