Ok, 14.4-rc1 boots fine and goes onto MATE gui fine.@Tom
Please Please Please test the RC1 on your X1000.
Desktop looks good.
Firefox (47) is good, and LibreWriter works as it did on earlier kernels.
However, I stumbled on to something:
MATE System Monitor (1.18.0) hangs, requiring a force end, if I choose the File Systems tab.
Other tabs work though.
The File Systems tab works fine on kernel 13.1.
I'll try the earlier 14.4 versions and report back.
Edit: this glitch does not occur with 4.14-alpha1.
it does occur with 4.14-alpha2 and higher
tom