Intel i810 graphics configuration problem
 

I've just installed Libranet 2.8.1 on a new Dell Dimension 3000 (Celeron processor, 512 MB RAM). However, the display settings are currently incorrect - X is working and I'm getting the 1024x768 display I asked for, but the colour depth is wrong - appears to be only 256 colour, or maybe 16K. Pretty ugly, anyway.

According to the documentation for the PC, the graphics chip is an integrated Intel Extreme Graphics 2. Libranet's X configuration program on XAdminmenu picks it up as an Intel i810. I gather there can be "issues" with this chip on Linux. (Mind you, Windows XP failed to configure it properly as well when I reinstalled XP on a small partition to enable dual booting - get a similarly reduced colour depth there, with the added bonus of only 640x480 resolution).

I thought about using Vesa under the manual configuration, but wasn't sure what I should put for the video memory, as apparently this needs to be included for an i810. I've tried a couple of settings based on guidance found online, but the configuration failed when I tried to test it.

Is there a simple way to configure the graphics successfully?

Might this also be related to the fact I can't get the sound to work at all (documentation describes audio as "AC97, Sound Blaster Emulation, ADI1580 audio controller with 2.1 implementation")? Both the kernel modules approach and ALSA fail to produce any noise whatever out of it (and yes, I do have my speakers on ;) )

Thanks,

John

Hope this helps;
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=224547
thats for debian, Libranet I think has its own thing Libranet Adminmenu.

Have you checked the amount of RAM allocated to the graphics card by the BIOS?

Integrated graphics chips usually don't have any dedicated RAM, and must use part of your main memory for graphics operations. Every one I've ever seen did this. Every one I've ever seen also had a setting in the BIOS to define the amount of RAM to dedicate to the integrated graphics. If you've seen the same lower color depth under XP, it might be a good idea to poke around in the BIOS for that setting.

1024x768x32 is 1024 pixels by 768 pixels by 32 bits, which works out to at least 3 Megs of memory required. This is just a rule of thumb. I think the card needs memory for other things as well, and you might need more memory depending upon how X is configured (dual-buffering and backing stores take more RAM, I think. Don't quote me on that).

That is in fact how I eventually solved the problem (apologies - should have posted to say I'd now solved it).

The BIOS video RAM was set to 1 MB. Changed it to 8 MB and the graphics then worked, though had to also change the video RAM setting in the X config. file to 32 MB before Tuxracer would work smoothly!