Do you remember how Intel used to be the white knight of graphic card manufacturers, the one from which you could buy hardware without looking, being sure that it would be supported by GNU/Linux directly?

Do you remember how they broke that by releasing the infamous Poulsbo card?

Well, they did it again. The newest Intel Atom D2500, D2550, D2700, N2600 and N2800 processors, codenamed “CedarView” and “Cedar Trail”, include a graphic core that is only supported by a proprietary driver only available on Meego (read: unusable on regular GNU/Linux.

So, if you plan to buy a netbook, beware! Intel is not a manufacturer you can trust to provide freely usable hardware. Just like other manufacturers, check that the hardware you are planning to buy is supported, by asking on #intel-gfx on Freenode. The most relevant course of action probably consists in buying a previous model or waiting for the next models.