TC Xorg installation strategy

[Yleisajattelija]

I have used TC few months now. We have tried few TC installations to workstations and laptotps. TC+Xvesa installation is solid, but basic problem is that vesa standard is not updated anymore, so new motherboard (Intel DZ68DB) current BIOS is missing resolutions for 9/16 -LCD-displays.

So, Xorg have to be installed, but that rarely works at this moment on TC installation. Probably this is not TC -problem, I think that Xorg+X-stack is not working, as usual.

What is a solution? Xorg supplies source codes only.  Xorg-source compiling is distro staff work, I think.

Didn't found TC Xorg/X-stack display drivers installation/config docs, is there any?

[Juanito]

I have two machines with intel graphics hardware - which is notoriously buggy - and for the first time, with Xorg-7.6, both of them work "confless".

Did you try the above scenario (xf86-video-intel needs to be loaded)?

[Yleisajattelija]

One problem is that we eventually got one old Intel 815/915-whatever-oldtimer-chip installation working by SEPARATELLY loading that xf86-video.intel driver before Xorg (I'm not sure if this was true reason for this "unexpected win", maybe we accidentally changed newer TC version at same time)

I think think is NOT Xorg meant to be, they presume loading automatically ALL drivers, needed or not. I personally prefer semi-automatic installation, which you can select installed driver manually.

Anyway, TC Xorg installation docs are not valid at this moment. I'm not The best person to document TC X-stack. Someone knows better, documentation (desperately) needed.

[Juanito]

One problem is that we eventually got one old Intel 815/915-whatever-oldtimer-chip installation ...

You can use Xvesa + 915resolution with this hardware to get the required resolution

[curaga]

If the chip is i8xx, Intel has dropped support a while ago. On those chips vesa may even work better than the intel driver.

[Yleisajattelija]

Yes, but now I have to insatall Intel Sandbridge 2-gen Core i3 + GPU-2000. Driver is published 11/2011, and (suprisingly!) latest TC is probably supporting that chip.

Question: Do I have to load xf86-video.intel before Xorg? And that graphics-whatever-it-was package? That 2000 GPU is included MPEG-decoder, I want that to work, too.

[curaga]

No need to manually load intel or graphics. They are deps (or subdeps) of Xorg-7.6.

For the Sandy Bridge video accel, I think our libva extension is too old (and you'd need a player that supports va-api, I'm not sure if we have one in the repo).

[Juanito]

I have a machine with intel hd3000 graphics and Xorg-7.6 works confless with it.

[Yleisajattelija]

I just loaded latest TC, I will try installation tonight.

FLTK seems very efficient, OpenGL support should be, too. Minimizing X-stack sounds VERY good idea, I don't know if it is possible in this case. I think serious programmers typically wants simple API:s, so it is possible to build mimimalistic X-stack.

I did look that Intel HD2000/3000 instruction set, and that 3D-api is VERY complicated. Of course, those rendering staff etc. need specialiced HW, but THAT is too much. That uP-GPU-MPEG-decoder integration idea may be good, it should remove lot of slow bus traffic.

But, as allways, at real life speed depends on driver and X-stack efficiency.

[Yleisajattelija]

TC 4.21 installed. Locales setup and Xorg driver for Intel core 3i HD2000 won't work out of the box. Problem is how to fix it. At least Xorg installer should be interactive (I know, that is not possible).

Xorg is probably using standard udev handshake, so this is kernel problem. That is anyway key point for systematic installation.  "Major bug fix" would be to modify udev kernel handshake -process to create  PCI/USB-device list first and then prompt user recursively for drivers found by udev.

By the way, TC installation user interface is excellent, simple and handy. Pro, I would say.

[Yleisajattelija]

Seems that Xorg is heavy user of udev. Probably USB stics etc removable media need udevd (mdev is some kind of static brother of udev).

udev is "child of Unix", use to be small at first, gigantic piece of code nowdays.

These constant installation problems with Xorg are probalby related to that Xorg special udev use. Should be static process at boot, dynamics should be for USB etc. only.

Should be like this:

a) TC BusyBox/Xvesa system on USB-stick. Lets name it as "Pelasti". It is not just rescue stick, but installation and maintenace stick too. TC main numbers (5.xx, 6.xx ...) needs new Pelasti, same main mumber (X.01, X02, ...) just update drivers
b) Target installation with Xorg (maybe with Gnu utils) on HD or/and flashdisk with drivers installed. Removable media (USB), needs set of drivers. This is not problem, because USB-driver is two-layer, only need upper layer drivers.
c) Target drivers installation have to be done two times  (second time just Xorg-drivers)
d) If TC installation prosedure could support this interactive udev "device driver loading at installation", EVERYTHING would be easy
e) Becouse TC is not supporting this genius interactive process, I have to do it manually: lspci, lshw, udevadm, read_EDID etc. set of tools must be loaded on Pelasti. With some digging /dev /sys directories may be enough to save world

This not necessary solve these problems with Xor-drivers, but lets try...

 

[Yleisajattelija]

Seems that this 9/16 screen resolution problem is very common on current xvesa-bios on all distros.

Xorg -drivers for Sandbridge HD2000/HD3000 are not working at any distro, either.

That HUGE complexity on Intel GPU API is VERY costly now.

Juanito, is your HD3000 Xorg driver really working?

[Juanito]

Juanito, is your HD3000 Xorg driver really working?

What do you mean by really working?

I'm using Xorg-7.6 and looking at the gui as we speak:

Code: [Select]

[    58.691] (II) intel(0): Integrated Graphics Chipset: Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile (GT2)
[    58.691] (--) intel(0): Chipset: "Sandybridge Mobile (GT2)"

[Yleisajattelija]

Obviously that HD3000 is working on Juanito's machine.

But, I mean:

Did it work "out of the box" TC installation, without rewriting whole Xorg code etc. tricks.

I did use latest TC and installed Xorg, and CRASH!

[Juanito]

If I'd hacked things to make it work, I'd have said so.

It works right out of the box and without an xorg.conf

BTW, just to be clear, 3d doesn't work with any hardware requiring the intel driver at the moment...