[gentoo-user] X-Server-1.8 and Intel i915 modesetting stability

[Florian Philipp]

Hi list!

I ran into a massive problem when I tried to update to xorg-server-1.8:
When I tried to start it, the x-server didn't come up and wrote this
error: "(EE) intel(0): No kernel modesetting driver detected".

So I activated modesetting by default in the kernel and tried it again.
Now I have two distinct problems:

1. On boot up, the screen goes completely black until the xserver is
started. While I know my system long enough to recognize common boot
errors by watching the disk and peripheral device activity, I wouldn't
like to make a filesystem recovery blindfolded ;)

2. Once the XServer runs, it is extremely unstable. It gets killed and
restarted by XDM every few minutes. dmesg and Xorg.0.log haven't shown
anything suspicious.

In the end that means that I'm currently stuck with xorg-server-1.7 and
no modesetting.

For reference, my system:
Dell Latitude D520
Intel GMA 945 (i915 driver)
64bit, libs mostly from stable
screen resolution 1400x1050

Thanks in advance,
Florian Philipp