[i810] Broken Intel Video i810, upgrade from 8.04 to 8.10 Beta unless Option "NoDRI" used

i810 was dropped from the archive because the driver is not supported anymore. Please attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log with the new xorg.conf.

umm that's why, I had specified i810 in xorg.conf before the upgrade, and so that's why Xorg was refusing to start, after running "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg", "Intel" driver is being used (although not explicitly specified on xorg.conf, but I shows up on Xorg.0.log as being used).

My new (working) xorg.conf produces the attached Xorg.0.log.

This is the xorg.conf with the modelines needed to get 1024x768

I updated xorg today, and the problem is worse. GDM won't start even with the modelines.

:~$ apt-cache policy xserver-xorg
xserver-xorg:
  Instalados: 1:7.4~2ubuntu7
  Candidato: 1:7.4~2ubuntu7
  Tabla de versión:
 *** 1:7.4~2ubuntu7 0
        500 http://sv.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
:~$ apt-cache policy xorg
xorg:
  Instalados: 1:7.4~2ubuntu7
  Candidato: 1:7.4~2ubuntu7
  Tabla de versión:
 *** 1:7.4~2ubuntu7 0
        500 http://sv.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
--------

I've to kill X, stop GDM and do startx to get a 800x600 Dekstop.

Using Intel driver I found that if xorg.conf has the following lines:

Section "Device"
       Option "XaaNoPixmapCache"
EndSection

...

Section "Module"
       Load "v4l"
EndSection

------------------

GDM won't load, commenting both of them makes GDM happy.

If I kill GDM & X, and then start the desktop with "startx", everything is fine, with "v4l" and "XaaNoPixmapCache" enabled or not, so it must be something in GDM that is triggering a failure in X.

In brief, the problem is: "intel" driver + "XaaNoPixmapCache" + "v4l"

If i810 driver is dropped, why there's still active updates for xserver-xorg-video-i810 ?

By the way, it's just my imagination or i810 driver gave better fps than Intel does?. I would like to try it out but setting "i810" driver in xorg.conf does not seems to work.

http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/xserver-xorg-video-i810

X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver

This is a transitional package providing the Xorg video driver for the Intel i8xx and i9xx family of chipsets, and can be safely removed.

------------------------------

Ok, I got the point about deprecated and removed...

The key point in this bug report is that now, Intrepid is just not working by default with i810 chipsets. I have a Compaq Presario 5000LA (which is dated I know, but it's still useful..) and it won't load gdm because this xserver-xorg problem :( which for a (even more than me) beginner will be a total frustration.

Actual problems with Intel driver for i810 chipset are:

-GDM becomes crazy and crashes by default.
-If I kill GDM/X and get to my desktop using "startx", the display settings window won't let me choose above 800x600 by default.
-dri is only activated @ 16bpp, I found it while reading the Xorg.0.log, otherwise @ 24bpp I get 30fps in glxgears, in 16bpp I get ~200fps :)

Bottom line is that intel driver is not that bad, but it's default configuration just does not work!.

Please, Intrepid is only 9 days from now, and just God knows how many users will be disappointed when they see theirs GDM crashing with no obvious reason :(

(no need to keep open for xorg too)

Testing with:
:~$ apt-cache policy xserver-xorg xorg xserver-video-intel
xserver-xorg:
  Instalados: 1:7.4~5ubuntu2
  Candidato: 1:7.4~5ubuntu2
  Tabla de versión:
 *** 1:7.4~5ubuntu2 0
        500 http://sv.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
xorg:
  Instalados: 1:7.4~5ubuntu2
  Candidato: 1:7.4~5ubuntu2
  Tabla de versión:
 *** 1:7.4~5ubuntu2 0
        500 http://sv.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
W: No se ha podido localizar el paquete xserver-video-intel
vlad@AuroX:~$ apt-cache policy xserver-xorg xorg xserver-xorg-video-intel
xserver-xorg:
  Instalados: 1:7.4~5ubuntu2
  Candidato: 1:7.4~5ubuntu2
  Tabla de versión:
 *** 1:7.4~5ubuntu2 0
        500 http://sv.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
xorg:
  Instalados: 1:7.4~5ubuntu2
  Candidato: 1:7.4~5ubuntu2
  Tabla de versión:
 *** 1:7.4~5ubuntu2 0
        500 http://sv.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
xserver-xorg-video-intel:
  Instalados: 2:2.4.1-1ubuntu9
  Candidato: 2:2.4.1-1ubuntu9
  Tabla de versión:
 *** 2:2.4.1-1ubuntu9 0
        500 http://sv.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

5 days... I presume that we're going to have Intrepid not working for computers with i810 video chipsets :(

I updated to:
xserver-xorg:
  Instalados: 1:7.4~5ubuntu3
  Candidato: 1:7.4~5ubuntu3
xorg:
  Instalados: 1:7.4~5ubuntu3
  Candidato: 1:7.4~5ubuntu3
xserver-xorg-video-intel:
  Instalados: 2:2.4.1-1ubuntu10
  Candidato: 2:2.4.1-1ubuntu10

Rebooted and still the same issue (well, worse because now I can't find a way to start GDM).

BTW. While GDM is crashed, I can switch to TTY1 and start htop, where I can see Zenity running with a message which says something like "You're running at low resolution..." -- that's all what I can read.

umm I figured out how to get some debug information form GDM, even if I do not know if it's even useful.

I got the attached log with "sudo gdm --nodaemon --debug 2> debug_gdm.txt"

Problems start to arise:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-driver-i810/+bug/279688

umm ~01:00a.m, finally found the problem.

Intel driver + DRI + GDM is not working, adding option to not use DRI in xorg.conf (Option "NoDRI") solves the problem and GDM start nicely -- for the first time in several days :)

It's more important to me GDM than DRI support (common, I don't expect to play on a Presario 5000LA), so I can live with it. FPS in glxgears dropped from 200fps to 40fps, but it's ok.

Weird that only GDM trigger this bug on the intel driver.

[Don't need to have this open against both -intel and xorg; the former should suffice.]

The i810 chipset is so old that upstream no longer provides support for it. So other than your workaround it's unlikely we'll see a real fix to this issue. But leaving the bug report open for now.

I guess you're right :(

By the way, I'd found that I can use DRI if I boot with acpi=off (weird eh?), GDM starts after showing garbage and restarting X 2 times.

I discovered it because on Intrepid I can't get my IC Plus 1000A to work without using "acpi=off" as a boot parameter.

Anyway, DRI + i810 is so unstable that my Firefox crashes very often when displaying embedded videos.

I suggest to use "NoDRI" as default for i810 chipsets, but I think that will be more a job to upstream than to Ubuntu.

Yeah I've been wondering about that. Compiz is disabled on at least a couple 8xx chips already. But removing DRI drops a lot of useful stuff so I want to avoid doing it if any other workarounds are available.

Hmm, on second thought, maybe I can put in the NoDRI on i810 by just extending the i865 patch. I'll take a look into this later.

This bug was fixed in the package xserver-xorg-video-intel - 2:2.6.3-0ubuntu8

---------------
xserver-xorg-video-intel (2:2.6.3-0ubuntu8) jaunty; urgency=low

  * Expand patch 116 and rename to 116_8xx_disable_dri.patch to
    fix freezing issue on i810 as well.
    (LP: #279835)

 -- Bryce Harrington <email address hidden> Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:18:46 -0700