Dell 700m - Widescreen no longer works after upgrading to OpenSuSE 12.1

English Hardware
1

Hi All - I recently did a fresh installation of OpenSuSE 12.1 and since then have lost the ability to run my display in the 1280x800 widescreen mode that I used to be able to with OpenSuSE 11.3. I have a Dell 700m laptop with an intel 855 GM builtin video card. Currently, I’m stuck at 1024x768.

I use framebuffer as the new KVM-drm stuff was horrible (I spewed so many “page_flip” debugs that it was killing my laptop’s performance. So I reverted back to framebuffer by adding nomodeset to the linux kernel boot argument.

In the past I recall having to install a driver directly from Intel’s site - can anyone please recommend what’s the best way forward?

Here are a few snippet from hwinfo:

hwinfo --framebuffer

02: None 00.0: 11001 VESA Framebuffer
[Created at bios.459]
Unique ID: rdCR.xnRagj3_2BF
Hardware Class: framebuffer
Model: “Intel(r)852GM/852GME/855GM/855GME Graphics Controller”
Vendor: “Intel Corporation”
Device: “Intel(r)852GM/852GME/855GM/855GME Graphics Controller”
SubVendor: “Intel(r)852GM/852GME/855GM/855GME Graphics Chip Accelerated VGA BIOS”
SubDevice:
Revision: “Hardware Version 0.0”
Memory Size: 15 MB + 832 kB
Memory Range: 0xe8000000-0xe8fcffff (rw)
Mode 0x0305: 1024x768 (+1024), 8 bits
Mode 0x0317: 1024x768 (+2048), 16 bits
Mode 0x0318: 1024x768 (+4096), 24 bits
Mode 0x0312: 640x480 (+2560), 24 bits
Mode 0x0314: 800x600 (+1600), 16 bits
Mode 0x0315: 800x600 (+3200), 24 bits
Mode 0x0301: 640x480 (+640), 8 bits
Mode 0x0303: 800x600 (+800), 8 bits
Mode 0x0311: 640x480 (+1280), 16 bits
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
[HR][/HR]
02: None 00.0: 11001 VESA Framebuffer
[Created at bios.459]
Unique ID: rdCR.xnRagj3_2BF
Hardware Class: framebuffer
Model: “Intel(r)852GM/852GME/855GM/855GME Graphics Controller”
Vendor: “Intel Corporation”
Device: “Intel(r)852GM/852GME/855GM/855GME Graphics Controller”
SubVendor: “Intel(r)852GM/852GME/855GM/855GME Graphics Chip Accelerated VGA BIOS”
SubDevice:
Revision: “Hardware Version 0.0”
Memory Size: 15 MB + 832 kB
Memory Range: 0xe8000000-0xe8fcffff (rw)
Mode 0x0305: 1024x768 (+1024), 8 bits
Mode 0x0317: 1024x768 (+2048), 16 bits
Mode 0x0318: 1024x768 (+4096), 24 bits
Mode 0x0312: 640x480 (+2560), 24 bits
Mode 0x0314: 800x600 (+1600), 16 bits
Mode 0x0315: 800x600 (+3200), 24 bits
Mode 0x0301: 640x480 (+640), 8 bits
Mode 0x0303: 800x600 (+800), 8 bits
Mode 0x0311: 640x480 (+1280), 16 bits
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

03: None 00.0: 10002 LCD Monitor
[Created at monitor.95]
Unique ID: rdCR.17sRxFoNJq2
Hardware Class: monitor
Model: “D5404 LCD Monitor”
Vendor: AUO “D5404”
Device: eisa 0x0c01
Resolution: 1280x800@60Hz
Size: 261x163 mm
Detailed Timings #0:
Resolution: 1280x800
Horizontal: 1280 1301 1333 1408 (+21 +53 +128) -hsync
Vertical: 800 804 808 816 (+4 +8 +16) -vsync
Frequencies: 75.00 MHz, 53.27 kHz, 65.28 Hz
Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

04: None 00.2: 10002 LCD Monitor
[Created at monitor.95]
Unique ID: aHB6.17sRxFoNJq2
Hardware Class: monitor
Model: “D5404 LCD Monitor”
Vendor: AUO “D5404”
Device: eisa 0x0c01
Resolution: 1280x800@60Hz
Size: 261x163 mm
Detailed Timings #0:
Resolution: 1280x800
Horizontal: 1280 1301 1333 1408 (+21 +53 +128) -hsync
Vertical: 800 804 808 816 (+4 +8 +16) -vsync
Frequencies: 75.00 MHz, 53.27 kHz, 65.28 Hz
Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

2

Please, can you pass the output of sending the command:


xrandr

and please also open the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log with a text editor, copy the contents, and paste the contents to the web site SUSE Paste and press ‘create’ and then post here the website/URL that it provides with the log contents. That will give our resolution experts something IMHO easier to work with.

I note you advise you are using the framebuffer (fbdev) driver. Did you try the vesa graphic driver and find that worse ? Did you try the intellegacy graphic driver and find that worse ?

and when using the nominal Intel driver (without ‘nomodeset’) did you try it without special desktop effects enabled ?

3

Further to oldcpu’s advice about the intellegacy driver (which may serve your old i855 GM chipset better), you should read the following guide

Intel Graphics Hardware

4

Greetings, here are the two pieces of data:

Output of xrandr:

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1024 x 768, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 768
default connected 1024x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1024x768 76.0*

Dump of /var/log/Xorg.0.log: SUSE Paste

I haven’t tried the vesa graphic driver - I do have the intellegacy drivers installed and assumed that meant they would be used automatically. On the a much older OpenSuSE version, 10.3 if I recall correctly, I had to down load the intel drivers manually and they worked pretty well. With OpenSuSE 11.* these Intel drivers appeared to be shipped as part of the distro and things worked pretty well.

Finally, I did turn the special desktop effects off but that does not appear to make a difference.

What next?

5

What would be of possible more interest, is the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file when the Intel driver is running, as opposed to the FBDEV driver. When you note you “did turn the special desktop effects off but that does not appear to make a difference” was that with the FBDEV or Intel driver. For me its no interest to do that with the FBDEV driver. It IS of interest to do that with the Intel driver.

With the Intel driver running, did you disable the loading of the DRM module as a test ?

Its worth trying. I likely is superior to the FBDEV.

No, that is not the case. The openSUSE-12.1 release notes provide guidance here. openSUSE 12.1 Release Notes and I’ll make this easier and quote a salient section:

In the rare cases when loading the DRM module from initrd is a general problem and unrelated to KMS, it is even possible to disable loading of the DRM module in initrd completely. For this set the NO_KMS_IN_INITRD sysconfig variable to yes via YAST, which then recreates initrd afterwards. Reboot your machine.

On Intel without KMS the Xserver falls back to the fbdev driver (the intel driver only supports KMS); alternatively, for legacy GPUs from Intel the “intellegacy” driver (xorg-x11-driver-video-intel-legacy package) is available, which still supports UMS (User Mode Setting). To use it, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf and change the driver entry to intellegacy.

openSUSE-11.1 with its 2.6.27 kernel was the last openSUSE version that worked really well with some of the older Intel graphic hardware. Since then its been IMHO mostly hit and miss with older Intel hardware. And its not just openSUSE. Its all GNU/Linux distributions where the 2.6.27 kernel was the last with good support for older Intel graphic hardware.

Try the Intel driver. Get the Xorg.0.log file with it running. Post that log file here.

Try the Intel driver. Try disabling DRM. Get the Xorg.0.log file with it running. Post that log file here.

Try the intellegacy driver. Do you need guidance how to load that ?

Try the vesa driver. Do you need guidance how to load that ?

6

Before you go editing the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.conf file, I recommend you install the application ‘midnight commander’ ( ie ‘mc’ ).

That is a text editor that works in a text mode and is Function-key menu driven and is easy to use. That way if you get stuck in a full screen mode and need to make an edit, it can be easily used. I think it is installed by default in Gnome, but KDE and LXDE users need to install it separately.

7

Hi All - Quick post to let you know that my issue is now resolved. Did not have to touch anything in particular, in fact, I removed the nomodeset line and after a kernel update, everything seems to be working pretty well.

Thanks again for all the good tips and pointers.

8

Glad to read the kernel update works. I can’t figure out what update in the kernel uipdate (and there were a lot) helped. …

I looked at this one, but it appears not relevant as I think it is referring to boot splash resolution changes:


* Tue Jan 19 2010 tiwai-at-suse.de
- patches.suse/bootsplash-scaler: Refresh.  Fix the hang-up with
  resolution changes (bnc#570082)

and there are various drm fixes, but from what I can read they were intended for radeon and not intel hardware.