Dell Inspiron Mini black laptop

English Hardware
#1

I installed openSUSE 11.2 on this mini laptop. The only problem (for several programs anyway) is the resolution. In System Settings the resolution is unvariable and set on 800x576, not fine to work with anyway.

When I had a problematic Windows (resolution anyway 1024x768) on this machine, official version anyway, but with many problems, I decided to change this into openSUSE, because I have worked with openSUSE many many years on my desktop and now of course openSUSE 11.2, without problems.

But as far as it goes to the Dell Inspiron Mini, I tried to start Sax2 as root, but I just saw a mutilated color screen and the laptop stuck, I had to restart. I cannot see anything more (no extended lists) in System Settings / Monitor.

In Yast2 / Hardware I see:
Monitor:
BP099 B101AW1 LCD
Resolution:
Width 1024
Height 576
Vertical frequence 60

Supplier: Intel Corporation
Model: System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) Graphics Controller
Driver: Unknown

It seems to be a problem with e.g. Xorg or whatever, I cannot start up Sax2 normally, nothing visible or changeable in System Settings / Monitor

but I definitely want to change the resolution into (as in Win before) 1024x768, so that I can open and work with several programs that now have problems with the resolution-

Dell anyway told me there is no Linux driver for this mini laptop, so no Linux driver to solve the graphic problem.

Is there anyone who had the same problem with an equal Dell of whatever and how has you solved this properly?

Please advise, many many thanks.

#2

60 views but still no replies, a pity, no experience with this Dell?

In the meantime I found a rather messy openSUSE 11.2 repository (not by openSUSE itself) but by someone, from Fedora 10 and 11, who “saw the light” with the GMA500/Poulsbo graphic chip by Intel. Intel seems to be busy with a Linux driver as well now.

But for the moment there are four important files:
libdrm-poulsbo-2.3.0-12.1.i586.rpm
xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm
psb-firmware-0.30-3.1.noarch.rpm
xpsb-glx-0.18-6.1.i686.rpm
from: Index of /repositories/home:/lkundrak:/poulsbo

but according to people at the end of 2009 they said it was rather messy.
When I tried to install these 4 files my X-server did not react anymore, that’s what I had on my laptop.

Does anybody have any experience with these files in a more proper way?

At the moment:
openSUSE 11.2 (i586)
kernel 2.6.31.12-0.2-desktop i686
4.3.5 (KDE 4.3.5) “release 0”
same Dell machine as in my first message

Thanks for any reply.

#3

I don’t know the answer, but don’t give up yet!

The only thing I can think of is if you can’t get openSUSE going there’s the Ubuntu Netbook Remix which may work.

#4

Hi Dragonbite,

Well, my xorg.conf says:

Section “Monitor”
DisplaySize 305 229
HorizSync 31-61
Identifier “Monitor[0]”
ModelName “1024X768@75HZ”
Option “PreferredMode” “1024x576”
VendorName “–> LCD”
VertRefresh 50-76
UseModes “Modes[0]”
EndSection

and

Section “Screen”
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection “Display”
Depth 15
Modes “1024x576”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 16
Modes “1024x576”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1024x576”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 8
Modes “1024x576”
EndSubSection
Device “Device[0]”
Identifier “Screen[0]”
Monitor “Monitor[0]”
EndSection

Strange hey, if you see Section Monitor and Section Screen you see what xorg.conf is stating. But my actual screen is 800x576, as it cannot be changed according to Sax2 because of the Intel chip, no drivers acc. to Sax2.

So Sax2 says something different than the configuration of xorg.conf

Don’t know why, but these drivers, as I said, were messy.
Ubuntu is not an option, as everything works well with openSUSE, except for the graphic side.

Another good solution maybe?

#5

Did you look at this post in our faq/how-to section: openSUSE Forums - View Single Post - openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users

Can you confirm the intel driver is being used? Please look at /var/log/Xorg.0.log file (open it with a text editor) and look for something like:

[II]Intel

if instead you see:

[II]VESA

or

[II]FBDEV

then you do not have the intel driver in use.

Can you tell us what version of the Intel driver is being used? You can do that by looking in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log or provide the output of:

rpm -qa '*driver*'
rpm -q Mesa

and we can provide further guidance (as to how to tell Intel driver version) from there.

Note post#11, here: openSUSE Forums - View Single Post - openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users while written for radeon users, also applies to Intel users.

Also note post#40 and #41 here: openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users - openSUSE Forums wrt IEGD (Intel Embedded Graphic Driver) … which may nor may not be relevant to your hardware.
but it is NOT possible to say if those are relevant to your PC as you have not told us what Intel graphic hardware is in your Dell Inspiron Mini

#6

Indeed there is no (II) Intel.

I only have (II) VESA (no FBDEV).

Yes, I saw the site you mentioned, it does not mention the Intel GMA500/Poulsbo anyway, according to many informations it is still in development with Intel and I explained about the drivers I had from the opensuse repository and the problems caused.

This is the result you asked for:

rpm -qa ‘driver’
xorg-x11-driver-video-radeonhd-1.3.0_20100216_79a0ab2-0.1.1.i586
cups-drivers-1.3.9-4.1.i586
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.4-87.91.1.i586
xorg-x11-driver-input-7.4-39.2.1.i586

rpm -q Mesa
Mesa-7.6-3.1.i586

and this is about sax2:

sax2 -p

Chip: 0 is -> VESA Vesa-BIOS Graphics 00:02:0 0x8086 0x8108 PCI vesa

Hope we can now solve something to have the Poulsbo work.

Thanks anyway.

#7

The Intel Poulsbo is definitely not a point and click setup in Linux. The wiki has this to say: Poulsbo (chipset) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Phoronix has this to say: [Phoronix] Intel Poulsbo Driver Running On Fedora](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzI2OA)

The Phoronix web site makes reference to the packages: libdrm-poulsbo, psb-kmod, psb-firmware, xpsb-glx, and xorg-x11-drv-psb

If you search here: Software.openSUSE.org you will find libdrm-poulsbo, psb, psb-kmp-default (or different packages dependant on one’s kernel), psb-firmware, xpsb-glx, and xorg-x11-drv-psb … plus possibly other psb apps …

You may need to explore and hack at this a bit. I have no such hardware, nor experience with it.

#8

I already told that these drivers on OpenSUSE software have been installed before, but after all the X-server did not start up anymore, so these are not the proper drivers, according to me, at least not working well.

Hope for another solution anyway. Thanks.

#9

How is it you are certain that only the 4 you mention are needed (and hence your test was valid)? I found no reference stating it is the 4 you mention and only those 4 needed and not others.

#10

libdrm-poulsbo-2.3.0-12.1.i586.rpm
xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm
psb-firmware-0.30-3.1.noarch.rpm
xpsb-glx-0.18-6.1.i686.rpm
from: Index of /repositories/home:/lkundrak:/poulsbo

These drivers were advised to be installed to have the Intel graphic chip work, a remark told that I only had to install xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm, just restart and everything is OK.
Well, when I installed this file, there were dependencies, those other three, so I installed it through OpenSuse software, it came with those other three dependencies.
After I restarted the X-server did not start up anymore.

But there was also a remark that the drivers are rather messy.
So, it’s still a lack of Intel, not yet supporting the Poulsbo for other distributions properly (just Ubuntu and Fedora).
I now have also downloaded another file (no. 5) psb-kmp-desktop-4.41.1_2.6.31.12_0.2-6.4.i586.rpm, but I’m not so keen to install this as well, due to my experience with the other drivers and the result with the X-server after restarting.
Reinstalling openSUSE is not an option, repairing does not work properly, recompiling xorg.conf is the only option then.

How to solve this problem, just wait for a slow Intel?

Thanks anyway.

#11

OK, thanks. I do not know the details here, so I only have more philosophical questions. Hopefully the questions will not be irritating.

Did you try booting to run level 3 and see what you could do with the sax2 command ?

Did you look inside xorg-x11-drv-psb to see if that driver has a specific name that you need to pass as a parameter when running the sax2 command?

I don’t know.

One of the difficulties with Linux here is the lack of documentation when a custom driver/app is packaged. Is there by chance a documentation file (readme or something like that) included with the rpm? Can you look at the rpm contents ?

I am not at a Linux PC right now, and my “rpm cheatsheet” of various neat rpm commands (to find out what files are installed, … etc … ) is at home hence I can not give specific suggestions at this time for looking inside the rpm.

But if it were me, I would see what I could learn about the contents of the rpm, to see if that gives any hints as to the best way to apply its contents.

#12

But there was also a remark that the drivers are rather messy.
So, it’s still a lack of Intel, not yet supporting the Poulsbo for other distributions properly (just Ubuntu and Fedora).
I now have also downloaded another file (no. 5) psb-kmp-desktop-4.41.1_2.6.31.12_0.2-6.4.i586.rpm, but I’m not so keen to install this as well, due to my experience with the other drivers and the result with the X-server after restarting.
Reinstalling openSUSE is not an option, repairing does not work properly, recompiling xorg.conf is the only option then.

How to solve this problem, just wait for a slow Intel?

I sympathise with your situation. I had to read online to gain an understanding of your hardware and driver situation. This pretty much sums it up

[Phoronix] Intel’s Poulsbo Driver A Bloody Mess?](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzAyOQ)

I think you might get better support at here too

Intel Linux - Phoronix Forums

#13

for Oldcpu:

Did you try booting to run level 3 and see what you could do with the sax2 command ?

I did, but the sax2 command constantly said I cannot change anything, the chip has not been supported.

Did you look inside xorg-x11-drv-psb to see if that driver has a specific name that you need to pass as a parameter when running the sax2 command?

Yes, I have been inside, see what it looks like, to me it’s unclear anyway about any parameter.

xorg-x11-server^@psb-firmware^@xpsb-glx^@libdrm-poulsbo^@rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix)^@rpmlib(CompressedFileNames)^@libc.so.6^@libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.0)^@libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1)^@libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1.3)^@libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.3.4)^@libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.4)^@libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.7)^@libmm.so^@rpmlib(PayloadIsLzma)^@1.1.0^@^@^@^@4.0-1^@3.0.4-1^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@4.4.6-1^@4.7.1^@K#<85>ÀJö²ÀJ<92><80>ÀJ<8d>:ÀJ<8b>é@J<8b>é@J<8b>é@J<85>QÀJ<81>]@J<80>^KÀJ<80>^KÀJ<80>^KÀLubomir Rintel <lkundrak@v3.sk> - 0.31.0-11.2^@Lubomir Rintel <lkundrak@v3.sk> - 0.31.0-11.1^@Adam Williamson <awilliam@redhat.com> - 0.31.0-11^@Adam Williamson <awilliam@redhat.com> - 0.31.0-10^@Adam Williamson <awilliam@redhat.com> - 0.31.0-9^@Adam Williamson <awilliam@redhat.com> - 0.31.0-8^@Adam Williamson <awilliam@redhat.com> - 0.31.0-7^@Adam Williamson <awilliam@redhat.com> - 0.31.0-6^@Adam Williamson <awilliam@redhat.com> - 0.31.0-5^@Adam Williamson <awilliam@redhat.com> - 0.31.0-4^@Adam Williamson <awilliam@redhat.com> - 0.31.0-3^@Adam Williamson <awilliam@redhat.com> - 0.31.0-2^@- Make buildservice happy^@- Remove livna integration

  • Provide xorg.conf
  • Adjust dependencies for OpenSUSE^@- correct exclusivearch for rpmfusion buildsystem^@- exclusivearch ix86 (there’s no 64-bit poulsbo hardware)
  • mark config file as config
  • fix nvidia reference in comments of init script^@- add another PCI ID to the modprobe config file^@- fix up manpage character set^@- drop greedy.patch as it doesn’t seem to work (can’t work out why)
  • add xorg.conf handling initscript and script based on the ones used
    in NVIDIA and ATI packages, including setting migration heuristic
    in xorg.conf since the patch didn’t work^@- add greedy.patch: default to greedy migration heuristic (gives
    better performance for multiple testers)
  • add ignoreacpi.patch: default to ignoreACPI (required to avoid X
    crashing for multiple testers)^@- patch build to find newly relocated libdrm-poulsbo^@- add a modprobe config file to make the kernel module auto-load (in
    this package as it’s doing the job of psb-kmod-common)^@- Require akmod-psb not kmod-psb so I don’t have to keep rebuilding^@- Begin changelog tracking^@build31 1263849911

You can see I’ve been looking to the rpm-content more or less.
Hope it’s a bit clear to you anyway, thanks.

To Deano-Ferrari:

I sympathise with your situation. I had to read online to gain an understanding of your hardware and driver situation. This pretty much sums it up

I know these sites very well, but even they could not solve the thing properly. Still waiting for a proper reply, but still afraid to be patient for Intel to do something, as they keep promising.

#14

Good on ya for trying. This does not appear to be easy. I downloaded (but did not install) the rpm and I note this:

oldcpu@hal2009:~/rpms> rpm -qp xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm -l
warning: xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 5711cba2
/etc/X11/xorg.conf
/etc/modprobe.d/poulsbo.conf
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/libmm.so
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/psb_drv.so
/usr/share/man/man4/psb.4.gz

Of interest is they provide an xorg.conf file (which goes into /etc/X11 !! ) and also an /etc/modprobe.d/poulsbo.conf file.

That xorg.conf file is in danger of being re-written by sax2 !! You may need to re-install the rpm to get that file, and then immediately back up that file BEFORE it is over written. And then take a look at the file, and apply by hand any useful information from it to a hand created xorg.conf.

Next I note an /etc/modprobe.d/poulsbo.conf file. This is trickly. As of openSUSE-11.2 files that do NOT start with a number in /etc/modprobe.d/ are ignored as far as I know. In openSUSE-11.1 and early, any such file was loaded but thats not the case in 11.2. What exactly is IN that poulsbo.conf file? Maybe if deemed useful it could be renamed so that 11.2 will recognize it. As it is now, that file is, I believe, useless.

This is not pretty, and it appears this 11.2 package has never been tested on 11.2 as that /etc/modprobe.d/poulsbo.conf file makes no sense to me.

#15

I only have:

rpm -qp xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm
waarschuwing: xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 5711cba2
xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586

my /etc/modprobe.d/poulsbo.conf only reads as:

alias pci:v00008086d00008108svsdbcsci* psb
alias pci:v00008086d00008109svsdbcsci* psb

an my /etc/X11/xorg.conf reads as follows nowadays:

/…/

SaX generated X11 config file

Created on: 2010-04-21T14:43:29+0200.

Version: 8.1

Contact: Marcus Schaefer <sax@suse.de>, 2005

Contact: SaX-User list <https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/sax-users>

Automatically generated by [ISaX] (8.1)

PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!

Section “Files”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/local”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/Type1”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/URW”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/Speedo”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/PEX”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/cyrillic”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/latin2/misc:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/latin2/75dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/latin2/100dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/latin2/Type1”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/latin7/75dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/baekmuk:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/japanese:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/kwintv”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/truetype”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/uni:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/CID”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/ucs/misc:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/ucs/75dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/ucs/100dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/hellas/misc:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/hellas/75dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/hellas/100dpi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/hellas/Type1”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/misc/sgi:unscaled”
FontPath “/usr/share/fonts/xtest”
FontPath “/opt/kde3/share/fonts”
InputDevices “/dev/gpmdata”
InputDevices “/dev/input/mice”
EndSection

Section “ServerFlags”
Option “AllowMouseOpenFail” “on”
Option “ZapWarning” “on”
EndSection

Section “Module”
Load “glx”
Load “extmod”
Load “dbe”
Load “dri”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”

Driver “kbd” will be disabled unless ‘Option “AutoAddDevices” “off”’

is set in “ServerFlags” section.

Driver “kbd”
Identifier “Keyboard[0]”
Option “Protocol” “Standard”
Option “XkbLayout” “nl”
Option “XkbModel” “microsoftpro”
Option “XkbRules” “xfree86”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”

Driver “mouse” will be disabled unless ‘Option “AutoAddDevices” “off”’

is set in “ServerFlags” section.

Driver “mouse”
Identifier “Mouse[1]”
Option “Buttons” “7”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Name” “USB Optical Mouse”
Option “Protocol” “explorerps/2”
Option “Vendor” “Sysp”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5”
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
DisplaySize 305 229
HorizSync 30-50
Identifier “Monitor[0]”
ModelName “BP099 B101AW1 LCD MONITOR”
Option “PreferredMode” “1024x576”
VendorName “AUO”
VertRefresh 50-60
UseModes “Modes[0]”
EndSection

Section “Modes”
Identifier “Modes[0]”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection “Display”
Depth 15
Modes “1024x576”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 16
Modes “1024x576”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1024x576”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 8
Modes “1024x576”
EndSubSection
Device “Device[0]”
Identifier “Screen[0]”
Monitor “Monitor[0]”
EndSection

Section “Device”
BoardName “Vesa-BIOS Graphics”
Driver “vesa”
Identifier “Device[0]”
Screen 0
VendorName “VESA”
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Layout[all]”
InputDevice “Keyboard[0]” “CoreKeyboard”
InputDevice “Mouse[1]” “CorePointer”
Option “Clone” “off”
Option “Xinerama” “off”
Screen “Screen[0]”
EndSection

Section “DRI”
Group “video”
Mode 0660
EndSection

Section “Extensions”
EndSection

What kind of tricky and dangerous could be done and still install the psb-kmp-desktop-4.41.1_2.6.31.12_0.2-6.4.i586.rpm driver for the kernel after maybe?

Look forward to your reply, thanks.

#16

… please check the command in my post. You are missing the LAST parameter. Again, command is:

rpm -qp xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm -l

Reference the xorg.conf, … I doubt I can help by looking at a file that you post. I do not know enough about this.

If it were me, I would take an xorg.conf that functioned with my hardware (wether it was with fbdev, vesa or Intel graphics driver configured in the xorg.conf ) and compare it to the xorg.conf in the xorg-x11-drv-psb-0.31.0-1.1.i586.rpm.

#17

The only thing I know is that when I had the chance to see what happened in xorg.conf after installing the xorg-x11-drv-psb, I noted nothing has changed in xorg.conf, no intel or poulsbo mentioned in xorg.conf, maybe this needs the psb-kmp (kernel) module. Anyway, I’m also busy with the Phoronix forum now, see if they know a proper solution (doubt it, they’re a bit more into Fedora and Ubuntu).

Thanks anyway.

#18

I find it difficult to believe that the xorg.conf is the same. Yours has this:

Section "Device"
BoardName "Vesa-BIOS Graphics"
Driver "vesa"
Identifier "Device[0]"
Screen 0
VendorName "VESA"
EndSection

I seriously doubt that a xorg-x11-drv-psb xorg.conf would specify the VESA driver. That makes NO sense to me.

Instead I think/speculate it should possibly be:

Driver "psb"

Plus some other lines in the xorg should also be different.

#19

I installed xorg-x11-drv-psb again but in my xorg.conf the driver is still (after restarting) “Vesa” and not “psb”.
What a pity.

#20

What happens if you remove xorg-x11-drv-psb. Then remove /etc/X11/xorg.conf (back it up somewhere). Then re-install xorg-x11-drv-psb. And then look for an /etc/X11/xorg.conf

The reason I suggest this, is I am wondering if the rpm will NOT install a new xorg.conf if one already exists?