Dell Inspiron Mini black laptop

donquixote1 · 04-09-2010, 05:26 AM

I installed openSUSE 11.2 on this mini laptop. The only problem (for several programs anyway) is the resolution. In System Settings the resolution is unvariable and set on 800x576, not fine to work with anyway.

When I had a problematic Windows (resolution anyway 1024x768) on this machine, official version anyway, but with many problems, I decided to change this into openSUSE, because I have worked with openSUSE many many years on my desktop and now of course openSUSE 11.2, without problems.

But as far as it goes to the Dell Inspiron Mini, I tried to start Sax2 as root, but I just saw a mutilated color screen and the laptop stuck, I had to restart. I cannot see anything more (no extended lists) in System Settings / Monitor.

In Yast2 / Hardware I see:
Monitor:
BP099 B101AW1 LCD
Resolution:
Width 1024
Height 576
Vertical frequence 60

Supplier: Intel Corporation
Model: System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) Graphics Controller
Driver: Unknown

It seems to be a problem with e.g. Xorg or whatever, I cannot start up Sax2 normally, nothing visible or changeable in System Settings / Monitor, but after all there is not a problem with xorg.conf and sax2 works well under # init 3 and in failsafe.

but I definitely want to change the resolution into (as in Win before) 1024x768, so that I can open and work with several programs that now have problems with the resolution-

Dell anyway told me there is no Linux driver for this mini laptop, so no Linux driver to solve the graphic problem.Even Intel did not have Linux drivers, they scanned my laptop.

Is there anyone who had the same problem with an equal Dell of whatever and how has you solved this properly?

Is there anyone who knows a driver from third parties for this hardware (graphics)?

Please advise, many many thanks.

rweaver · 04-09-2010, 11:38 AM

My only suggestion would be to attempt to make a definition in the xorg.conf that allows you to change to 1024x768 and see if it works.

donquixote1 · 04-09-2010, 12:40 PM

Thanks, but this doesn't work, because in xorg.conf the preferred setting is already stating 1024x768, but without any effect on the system anyway, probably lacking a specific driver (Intel - Dell, which do not provide drivers for this mini laptop for Linux, only Win, as they confirmed).
Do you or anyone know another driver suitable for this graphic problem (made by a third party)??
Thanks.

donquixote1 · 04-13-2010, 01:31 PM

Further to this problem.
It is all about the GMA500(Poulsbo) graphic chip.

Quote:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=NzI2OA
Intel Poulsbo Driver Running On Fedora
While Intel can be applauded for their open-source work on
the xf86-video-intel driver and related components of their
Linux driver stack that supports their mainline GMA integrated
graphics processors, the driver for their GMA 500 found in select
netbooks is a bloody mess. There are binary-only bits within the
Poulsbo driver stack, their DDX module is developed outside of the
X.Org community and can be hard to even find the driver's package,
and it just does not work well.

There was even a Poulsbo DRM module that was proposed for
integration into the mainline Linux kernel, but that component was
denied for inclusion at this time. The Poulsbo Linux situation has
been a mess for months with no real changes. With Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
there is a Poulsbo driver available to users, but it's really hard
to find such support in other Linux distributions. The newer
versions of Ubuntu at times haven't even had the support.

Thanks to the work of Adam Williamson, a Red Hat employee and
frustrated Pouslbo chipset user, there is now some Poulsbo
support in Fedora. Adam has got the xf86-video-psb driver up and
running on Fedora Rawhide. So that others can now use this Intel
driver, Adam has created libdrm-poulsbo, psb-kmod, psb-firmware,
xpsb-glx, and xorg-x11-drv-psb packages.

When using these packages it should be possible to mode-set
with this driver, but 3D acceleration is broken.
2D video playback acceleration requires building a special
version of MPlayer. More information and details on setting up
the Intel Poulsbo driver on Fedora can be found on Adam's blog.

http://www.happyassassin.net/2009/08...00-poulsbo-on-
fedora-11-repository-with-working-3d-compiz-support/
AdamW on Linux and more
Intel GMA500 (Poulsbo) on Fedora 11: repository (with
working 3D / compiz support)
So, finally I bit the bullet and did it. I’ve set up a repository
with working packages for Intel GMA500 (Poulsbo) support on Fedora
11. You can just enable the repository and install the driver
and it will work.
The driver is now available in RPM Fusion. All you need to do
is enable the RPM Fusion repositories – you need non-free,
that’s where the driver lives – and run:

yum –enablerepo=rpmfusion-nonfree-updates-testing,updates-testing
install xorg-x11-drv-psb

then reboot, and all is good. If you want to use an
external display alongside the internal one, you’ll need to edit
the xorg.conf file and add a Virtual line, as briefly discussed
in the old text below. Otherwise, that’s really all you need to do.
All installation instructions below are obsolete, though some of
the tweaks discussed are still useful (like the kernel parameter
for the Vaio P). I will be removing my own repository shortly
and maintaining the driver only in RPM Fusion.

But what do we see for openSUSE?

Quote:

https://features.opensuse.org/306413
#306413: Poulsbo (GMA500) graphics support
Tags: hardware_and_drivers,xorg
Products:
openSUSE-11.2: Rejected
Description:
openSUSE should support laptops with an Intel GMA500 (Poulsbo)
graphics card. Currently, Ubuntu has a monopoly on such machines,
such as the Dell Inspiron Mini 12
Discussion:
# #1: S. D. (2009-06-05 18:37)
The driver is a mess. Thus it's simply not possible to integrate
it. If you're interested into more details, see enhancement
Bug #462707.

# #2: L. K. (2009-11-08 20:57)
You you can get packages with OpenSUSE 11.2 Intel GMA500 (Poulsbo)
Drivers here: http://v3.sk/~lkundrak/psb-opensuse-11.2/ . And yes,
as Stefan, noted, it's a horrible mess -- even ships own builds
of drm kernel module and libdrm. Can be argued that it may be
better than nothing though.

# #3: M. K. (2009-11-15 22:19) (latest comment)
According to http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px
=NzY2Mg a FOSS 2D driver (3D parts closed) is in development
by Intel itself.

I for instance just installed from this openSUSe Repository the xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm, rebooted and then, the X-server refused to start up. Indeed very messy and nothing working fine.

What could be done to solve this Dell problem (in Dutch one can play with the brand "Dell-ende" meaning Dell misery)?

Thanks for your advices.

RockDoctor · 04-14-2010, 07:18 PM

Can you get 1024x576 with the appropriate modeline in xorg.conf?

Code:

~$ gtf 1024 576 60

  # 1024x576 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 35.82 kHz; pclk: 47.00 MHz
  Modeline "1024x576_60.00"  47.00  1024 1064 1168 1312  576 577 580 597  -HSync +Vsync

donquixote1 · 04-16-2010, 02:59 AM

Many thanks RockDoctor, but have a look what my /etc/X11/xorg.conf looks like:

Quote:

# /.../
# SaX generated X11 config file
# Created on: 2010-04-13T07:51:06+0200.
#
# Version: 8.1
# Contact: Marcus Schaefer <sax@suse.de>, 2005
# Contact: SaX-User list <https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/sax-users>
#
# Automatically generated by [ISaX] (8.1)
# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!
#

Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/local"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/URW"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Speedo"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/PEX"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin2/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/latin7/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/baekmuk:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/japanese:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/kwintv"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/truetype"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/uni:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/CID"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/ucs/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/hellas/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc/sgi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/xtest"
FontPath "/opt/kde3/share/fonts"
InputDevices "/dev/gpmdata"
InputDevices "/dev/input/mice"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "on"
Option "ZapWarning" "on"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "glx"
Load "extmod"
Load "dbe"
Load "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# Driver "kbd" will be disabled unless 'Option "AutoAddDevices" "off"'
# is set in "ServerFlags" section.
Driver "kbd"
Identifier "Keyboard[0]"
Option "Protocol" "Standard"
Option "XkbLayout" "nl"
Option "XkbModel" "microsoftpro"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# Driver "mouse" will be disabled unless 'Option "AutoAddDevices" "off"'
# is set in "ServerFlags" section.
Driver "mouse"
Identifier "Mouse[1]"
Option "Buttons" "7"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Name" "USB Optical Mouse"
Option "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
Option "Vendor" "Sysp"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
DisplaySize 305 229
HorizSync 31-61
Identifier "Monitor[0]"
ModelName "1024X768@75HZ"
Option "PreferredMode" "1024x576"
VendorName "--> LCD"
VertRefresh 50-76
UseModes "Modes[0]"
EndSection

Section "Modes"
Identifier "Modes[0]"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x576"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x576"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x576"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x576"
EndSubSection
Device "Device[0]"
Identifier "Screen[0]"
Monitor "Monitor[0]"
EndSection

Section "Device"
BoardName "Vesa-BIOS Graphics"
Driver "vesa"
Identifier "Device[0]"
Screen 0
VendorName "VESA"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout[all]"
InputDevice "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
Option "Clone" "off"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
Screen "Screen[0]"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group "video"
Mode 0660
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
EndSection

Strange hey, if you see Section Monitor and Section Screen you see what xorg.conf is stating. But my actual screen is 800x576, as it cannot be changed according to Sax2 because of the Intel chip, no drivers acc. to Sax2.

I downloaded and installed from a openSUSE repository the files for this Poulsbo chip (one says it's a GMA500/Poulsbo made by Intel and used by Sony VAIO and Dell):
libdrm-poulsbo-2.3.0-12.1.i586.rpm
xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm
psb-firmware-0.30-3.1.noarch.rpm
xpsb-glx-0.18-6.1.i686.rpm

but after installing and rebooting my X-server refuses to start up.

Any good and other solution, xorg.conf seems to be okay?

Thanks.