Best xorg/mesa/drm/xf86-video-intel for Intel 82845G/GL

gnashley · 03-02-2011, 11:19 AM

Is anyone else here cursed with the 845G/GL graphics card. I've not found a proper combination of server/driver/libs to make this card tick on one of my machines. I was able to get slack-12.0 working on it, but when trying some later versions I never had any luck.

If anyone knows of a later combination that 'just works', I'd love to benefit from your experience!

witek · 03-02-2011, 02:25 PM

Me too. I even left Slackware for Ubuntu due to 845G. You might also want to test Salix (Slackware clone). It might work too.

BobNutfield · 03-02-2011, 02:52 PM

I have this chipset in one of my old laptops (P4) and nothing I found would work for any length of time. I have found that PCLinux 2010 is by far the most stable on it. I uses mesa7.8 and kernel 2.6.32 (PAE, I think). As long as I am using the machine, no problem at all with X. However, if I let the screensaver start, it never restores and I have to do a hard shutdown.

NOTHING since kernel 2.6.29 has worked on it, but prior to that it worked with most of the older distros.

FWIW.

Bob

Mol_Bolom · 03-02-2011, 03:06 PM

Well, other than getting a graphics card, the only other option is compiling an older version of xorg. Before I bought an nvidia card I did compile xorg, mesa, libdrm, and the intel driver from the slackware 12.2 source which worked. Then I had upgraded to slackware-current sometime between Feb through May of last year.

Bug# 26345: It looks like they may be getting closer to a fix. However, this particular report started on 2010-01-30. So it might take a little longer to fix.

PTrenholme · 03-02-2011, 04:06 PM

I don't know about Slackware, but my wife's Fedora system needed a modeset=1 kernel flag set before the X-server would stop aborting because, it claimed, direct rendering (DRM) was not supported by the kernel, but the driver required it. (Actually, the modeset option I set on was one specific - by a dot prefix - for her hardware.)

witek · 03-03-2011, 02:56 AM

I feel very disappointed about the state of xorg drivers development

The things that were working in the past should still work. Such regressions are destroying linux opinion as stable and give rise to say it will never be ready for desktop

allend · 03-03-2011, 08:37 AM

From http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support...hics/intel845g under "Notice: End of interactive support".

Quote:

These products are no longer being manufactured by Intel. Additionally, Intel no longer provides interactive support for these products via telephone, e-mail, or chat, nor will Intel provide any future software updates to support new operating systems or improve compatibility with third party devices and software products.

THESE DOCUMENTS ARE PROVIDED FOR HISTORICAL REFERENCE PURPOSES ONLY AND ARE SUBJECT TO THE TERMS SET FORTH IN THE "Terms of use". For information on currently available Intel products, please see www.intel.com/products.

Intel stopped support for this device when the kernel moved towards KMS, probably because the hardware was insufficently capable. According to the above link, Intel released the last Linux driver with support for this device on Thu, 22 Apr 2010.

gnashley · 03-03-2011, 01:42 PM

Thanks for that -although I find that site hard to navigate I did find some info which may be useful.

allend · 03-03-2011, 06:52 PM

Some links with information on the 82845G and how the switch from UMS to KMS brought grief.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=ODU0Ng
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=ODU0OA

gnashley · 03-04-2011, 03:20 AM

Yeah, more interesting stuff. Thanks very much.