Re: [gentoo-user] KDE4+i945+kernel+external display = ?

[William Kenworthy]

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Intel_GMA

Welcome to our world of pain :(

I made some headway using "-hal" for xorg-server in USE, and IgnoreEDID
and setting DDC to false in xorg.conf but the latest updates ignore
those and the UXA settings in the link above (check the xorg log for
other dirty secrets)

I am using 2.6.31-r3 (with kernel mode setting by default for the i915 -
doesnt work well without it) and xorg-server 1.6.5.

Its a laptop and there is no easy solution as the external screens
(various) that I use with it often have only 1024x768 in common with its
own LCD and stupid xorg wont let me overide it without consequences
elsewhere :(

xorg sucks badly at the moment and there is no viable alternative to
switch to - and the saddest thing is the chipset has worked fine in the
past (sadly becoming distant past for me) ...

BillK

On Wed, 2009-10-28 at 23:31 -0600, Dmitry Makovey wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I've got an interesting issue today which I half-resolved, but am still
> wondering whether I missed something important or did something that'll
> bite me in the end.
>
> So here's short story: I've been running older kernel (2.6.22-gentoo-r9)
> and KDE3 on my laptop(x86,i945) for quite some time. Now with recent
> unmasking of KDE4 I went with the flow and "upgraded" my KDE3 to KDE4
> (yep, I know it's still there, slotted etc., but that's not the point).
> So, after "upgrade" I've noticed how painfully slow my KDE4 was. Now,
> I've been running KDE4 on my home machine (amd64,nVidia) for quite some
> time now (ever since 4.2.0) and never noticed such things (mind you -
> it's running another rather dated kernel: 2.6.25-gentoo-r6), so I
> started digging. Xorg gave me no real reason for worries other than some
> complaints about DRI and the fact that "compatible" DRI would be part of
> kernel-2.6.28+, but I have not enabled any of the "effects" yet! Well,
> so I upgraded kernel, and... my X wouldn't start at all. Actually it did
> start but my externally plugged LCD monitor won't show anything. Lid on
> my Dell x420 laptop stays closed since I had trouble getting my
> 1920x1200 resolution on external LCD to cooperate with 1280x800 on
> internal one. SysRq saved me trouble of hitting reset too many times. A
> bit of digging on google brought me to this xorg.conf (probably
> suboptimal as I was adding options and never retracting them looking for
> the "right" combination):
>
> Section "Device"
>         Identifier      "Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics
> Controller"
>         Driver          "intel"
>         BusID           "PCI:0:2:0"
>         Option          "AccelMethod"   "xaa"
>         Option          "monitor-LVDS" "LVDS"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Device"
>         Identifier      "Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics
> Controller 2"
>         Driver          "intel"
>         BusID           "PCI:0:2:1"
>         Option          "AccelMethod"   "xaa"
>         Option          "monitor-LVDS" "LVDS"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Extensions"
>         Option "Composite" "Enable"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Monitor"
>         Identifier "LVDS"
>         Option "Ignore" "True"
>  EndSection
>
> Section "Module"
>         Load "dri"
> EndSection
>
> Section "ServerFlags"
>         Option "AIGLX"
> EndSection
>
> Section "DRI"
>         Group "video"
>         Mode 0660
> EndSection
>
> Section "Screen"
>         Identifier "Default"
>         Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
>         DefaultDepth 24
>         Subsection "Display"
>                 Depth 16
>                 Modes "1920x1200"
>         EndSubsection
>         Subsection "Display"
>                 Depth 24
>                 Modes "1920x1200"
>         EndSubsection
>         Subsection "Display"
>                 Depth 32
>                 Modes "1920x1200"
>         EndSubsection
> EndSection
>
> Some of it are hints from KDE folk, some came from other resources.
>
> Not only that but I had recompiled my kernel quite a few times with
> pretty much every possible options related to intel graphics on i945
> chipsets until I hit the "right" one. So it's kind of working. BUT - now
> every time I end KDE session instead of going back to KDM I'm being
> dropped to VT7, closer examination shows that KDM is running, but I
> can't get to it on any of the VTs. So I kill it and start again. And
> KDE4 itself leaves quite a few artifacts on screen (not entirely sure if
> it's related to a few effects I have enabled for usability's sake). KDE4
> on my home machine haven't had any of those issues for quite some time
> now (it's got different issues though ;) ).
>
> Another annoyance is that with older kernel vesa framebuffer worked
> perfectly fine (... video=vesafb:ywrap,mttr,1280x800-24@72 ...) and I
> was able to have full-screen framebuffered text console with 1280x800
> resolution on external LCD. Now I get some "viewport"-like console where
> content is stuck in the upper-left corner (I assume it's resolution is
> 1280x800) but it didn't scale to full screen.
>
> So my real question is: are there any specific guides I should've
> followed instead of playing "hit-n-miss"? Did I miss something along the
> way that produces KDM issues? Do I really have to have an xorg.conf only
> to disable certain things? How do I deal with my framebuffer so that my
> console looks bit more sane and utilizes all given real estate of 26"
> monitor and not a mere 50% or so.
>
> Sorry for bundling all those into one mail, but it kind of popped up
> altogether so I felt bad about separating it :-D
>
>
>
-- 
William Kenworthy <billk@×××××××××.au>
Home in Perth!