Screen flicker except in Ubuntu MATE

[Holgerrpl]

Hi,
this is no help request. It’s more a general thing.
I’m using a Thinkpad X201 with intel graphics i915. a docking station and an external LCD VGA monitor.
With Ubuntu (Unity), Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Linux Mint Cinnamon, Ubuntu Gnome I got screen flickering.

But not with Ubunte MATE. The worst is Xubuntu. I’ve tried all. Compton instead of the xfwm compositor, different settings like “tearfree” for the intel driver, adjusted h-sync and v-sync but the flickering is still there.
It’s like waves coming from the bottom of the monitor going to the top. You can see it best on grey background or on color gradients.
In Ubuntu MATE are no “waves”. The screen is stable, sharp and clear.
Any suggestions what Ubuntu MATE makes right and the other distros wrong?
Ubuntu MATE works perfect with all compositors. Also with compiz, that Unity is using, too. But in Unity the screen flickers, not in MATE.

[Etamuk]

Perhaps it’s because Ubuntu MATE uses Compiz as Window Manager. But i don’t know exactly.

[malwaredpc]

Ubuntu MATE use Marco with software composition or hardware composition.

[Holgerrpl]

I got the solution.
The curios thing is that I wrote it myself in this post two month before:

Canon LIDE20 Scanner Ubuntu MATE 16.04 16.10

The Canon LIDE20 scanner doesn’t work by default. Trying to use simplescan results a black page. The scanner shows no reaction. That’s mainly a matter of power management. Edit the file /etc/default/tlp. gksudo pluma /etc/default/tlp Set USB_AUTOSUSPEND to 0 [image] Save the file. Than go to User Settings, click on “Advanced”, click on the tab “User Privileges” and enable “Use scanners”. [image] Restart the computer and the scanner is working with simplescan.

I was not aware that there was a connection between a non working scanner and screen flickering.
Ubuntu MATE comes with tlp by default. In Xubuntu and other Ubuntu flavors it is not installed by default.
But from the beginning:
Tested with Xubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 and Lubuntu 16.04
I undock the notebook and connect the external display. Nothing flickers. I put the notebook in the ultrabase dock, connected the dock with the external Monitor and nothing flickers at all. I plug in the usb keyboard to the dock and it starts flickering. This was the moment I thought about the USB_AUTOSUSPEND option in /etc/default/tlp, but tlp wasn't installed.
So I installed tlp and set USB_AUTOSUSPEND to 0 and the flickering at the external monitor is gone.
No video driver, not a display manager and no kernel was the problem. It was the power management.
On Ubuntu MATE I set USB_AUTOSUSPEND to 0 after installation to get my scanner working, so I never noticed it.