Trying to install 11.3 to an old (ancient) Dell machine I’ve been using as a
backup box, I’ve run into an issue with the Intel video. It’s an onboard
i815 chipset and X refuses to start after trying an update install from
11.1. The log file shows it falling over because a the agpgart module is
not found - and I don’t see it anywhere on the disk. The log message says
I need to have it in order to use agp video.
This is as much an academic problem as anything as the box is well beyond
retirement age but I’d like to see how far I can get. Hardware is a Dell
GX-150 1GHZ Pentium (Coppermine) processor, i815 support set, 1 GB Ram. The
video chip is an unusual one and has given me fits since 10.0 but work up
through 11.1 after some diddling around. I skipped 11.2 on the box but I
like what I see of 11.3 so far and figured it was time to see what happened
with 11.3
The installation and boot logs show only the agp module problem but this is
a new one on me so I could use a little expert help.
> Trying to install 11.3 to an old (ancient) Dell machine I’ve been using as
> a
> backup box, I’ve run into an issue with the Intel video. It’s an onboard
> i815 chipset and X refuses to start after trying an update install from
> 11.1. The log file shows it falling over because a the agpgart module is
> not found - and I don’t see it anywhere on the disk. The log message says
> I need to have it in order to use agp video.
>
> This is as much an academic problem as anything as the box is well beyond
> retirement age but I’d like to see how far I can get. Hardware is a Dell
> GX-150 1GHZ Pentium (Coppermine) processor, i815 support set, 1 GB Ram.
> The video chip is an unusual one and has given me fits since 10.0 but work
> up
> through 11.1 after some diddling around. I skipped 11.2 on the box but I
> like what I see of 11.3 so far and figured it was time to see what
> happened with 11.3
>
> The installation and boot logs show only the agp module problem but this
> is a new one on me so I could use a little expert help.
Just for info: the above issue resolved when I did a clean install to
another partition using the original /home partition. From the log
entries, it appears that the 11.3 UPGRADE from 11.1 missed several key
upgrades - not only was the intel video module (i810) not updated, the
network card driver was skipped as well. The agpgpart referenced above and
displayed as the reason for failure is apparently built into intel driver
rather than being a separate component so the error message caused more
confusion rather than helping. This just goes to illustrate the hazards of
updating even reasonably stock system: test it first!