On Mon, 21 Oct 2002, Ben Hsu wrote:
>Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 18:48:04 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Ben Hsu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>List-Id: Discussion of Red Hat Linux 8.0 (Psyche) <psyche-list.redhat.com>
>Subject: Unable to start X
>
>Hello all,
>
>I installed Psyche on a Dell Dimension 2300. During boot
>Linux detects the graphics adapter as an Intel 845G. My
>monitor is a Samsung 570V.
>
>I cannot start X during the installation or after it. I've
>tried running 'redhat-config-xfree86' and 'X -probeonly'
>and they all came back with the same result: they all
>say "Screen(s) found but none are usable".
>
>The XFree86.0.log file shows that the i810 module lists
>a bunch of graphical modes, then X unloads the modules and
>exits with the above error message. It does not explicitly
>say whether any of these modes were rejected
>
>Has anyone seen this before?
XFree86 does not officially support Intel i845 video yet in any
officially released version. The XFree86 4.2.0-72 that comes
with Red Hat Linux 8.0 contains a backport I did of some initial
code from CVS to work with the i845. Having no Intel hardware
myself, the backport was untestable, however it went into our
beta releases, and some users reported that it worked for them
better than nothing at all. SInce the code changes were not
invasive and did not affect the code paths of other hardware
supported by the i810 driver, I opted to leave the patch in,
hoping that some users would benefit from it rather than have no
working video at all.
To date, feedback from users shows that it works for some users,
but only in certain resolutions and/or color depths. I do not
have any details, and cannot offer any help at all with
attempting to configure or use i845, but some other user who has
gotten it working might be able to assist. Note that the driver
is 2D only if you can get it working, so be sure to disable DRI.
Another option is to try the "vesa" driver, however most users
have told me that the vesa driver is useless for i845. Another
out of the box option that might or might not be possible, is to
use the kernel framebuffer, and use fbdev driver in X. Details
for doing this are covered in the Framebuffer-HOWTO available
online.
Aside from that is the "vga" driver which even if it worked bug
free will be unaccelerated, low res, crappy color, and generally
useless IMHO.
The above are all of the possible out-of-the-box ideas that I can
muster. XFree86 developmental CVS has a rewritten i810 driver
which has both 2D, and 3D support for i845, as well as fixing up
various issues that users have reported about the prior driver.
This code is not even in "beta" form yet, and is very highly
developmental. Also, although 3D is supported, it wont work
without a bit of mucking around currently (and I don't have time
to go into details about it).
If your machine requires working video, and you're willing to
accept non-production XFree86 code which may contain numerous
bugs and problems, you can try upgrading to my latest XFree86
developmental RPM snapshots. They are available at:
ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris/testing/live-grenades
The above developmental RPM's are the work-in-progress which will
end up becoming XFree86 4.3.0 sometime later this year, and will
likely be first introduced to Red Hat Linux users officially in
the next Red Hat Linux release. I will be keeping these RPMs
updated and tracking CVS between now and then.
Be sure to read the readme documents present in those directories
as they contain further information. Also, please do not ask me
for specific help via email as I'm unable to provide individual
assistance to people using the experimental releases. If you
encounter problems, please report them to the [EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailing list first, and then in Red Hat bugzilla and include any
feedback the mailing list gave you about your problem.
Another useful URL:
http://www.xfree86.org/~dawes/845driver.html
I hope this info is helpful to all i845/i830/i830m/i815/i810
users. Please pass the info along to other mailing lists, and
other people you know of having similar problems.
Take care,
TTYL
--
Mike A. Harris ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris
OS Systems Engineer
XFree86 maintainer
Red Hat Inc.
