intel linux driver (core i3)

English Hardware
1

i’m very confused to the state of the linux intel driver and opensuse.

i have a laptop with a core i3 and 350m graphics chipset. I’ve seen the many posts about it on various linux forums and the fact it doesnt work. after a bit more googling, I find Intel Linux Graphics, which i havent seen mentioned on any of the threads i read.

somewhere on that site (sorry - lost the link) it mentions that in many distro’s it’s already included, including oSUSE 11.3.

however, since i dont have any decent knowledge of linux, i wouldnt know how to check whats installed.

the problem itself seems to be 2 fold:
youtube videos play fine, but the videos exhibit flickering.
when i move windows around, xorg process CPU% shoots through the roof (i forget if it’s 25% or 100%; ie: 1 core, or the whole cpu).
based on my windows experience, both these issues are related to the lack of graphics card drivers.

so, my questions are:

  1. how to i ensure i am using the drivers listed at Intel Linux Graphics yast sugests im using a legacy 915 driver, forums sugest the core i3 HD-graphics is not properly compatible with the 915 driver.
  2. based on that, i guess the info i found at Intel Linux Graphics was incorrect in stating it’s included with oSUSE 11.3, and I need to install manually. again, due to my lack of experience I don’t seem to be able to install these linux drivers and unable to find a guide to help me out!

weirdly, vimeo worked fine (i only managed to test youtube and vimeo) and didnt show this flickering.

maybe i should hold out for 11.4 next week…?

2

Hi
Are you sure you have an intel GPU?

Please post the output from;


/usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.32.27-0.2-default
up 10 days 7:48, 2 users, load average: 0.13, 0.08, 0.01
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 260.19.26

3 
tim@linux-m7ph:~> /usr/sbin/hwinfo --gfxcard
08: PCI 02.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)              
  [Created at pci.318]
  Unique ID: _Znp.jzckK3VbaT6
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:00:02.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "Intel Arrandale Integrated Graphics Controller"
  Vendor: pci 0x8086 "Intel Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x0046 "Arrandale Integrated Graphics Controller"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1025 "Acer Incorporated [ALI]"
  SubDevice: pci 0x0358 
  Revision: 0x12
  Driver: "i915"
  Driver Modules: "drm"
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xd03fffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xc0000000-0xcfffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0x3050-0x3057 (rw)
  IRQ: 27 (5332 events)
  I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00008086d00000046sv00001025sd00000358bc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: i915 is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe i915"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

Primary display adapter: #8

i see it thinks im using the 915 driver, which while it will display a picture, i’m lead to beleive from various forums it isnt actually compatible with the intel HD (or core i) gfx hardware

what now?

4

Hi
OK, what about the output from;


/sbin/lspci

Sure you don’t have the intergrated and Nvidia controllers?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.32.27-0.2-default
up 10 days 12:26, 2 users, load average: 0.12, 0.07, 0.04
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 260.19.26

5

Hmmm … given my possibly inaccurate guess of your openSUSE familiarity, I recommend you wait for weeks for 11.4. Maybe try the 11.4 RC2 liveCD to test, but wait for the official release before installing. You can read some general openSUSE graphic practical theory here: openSUSE Graphic Card Practical Theory Guide for Users

6 
tim@linux-m7ph:~> /sbin/lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 12)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 12)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset HECI Controller (rev 06)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 05)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev 05)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset USB2 Enhanced Host Controller (rev 05)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev a5)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 5 Series Chipset LPC Interface Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset 4 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset SMBus Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset Thermal Subsystem (rev 05)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications AR8151 v1.0 Gigabit Ethernet (rev c0)
02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
7f:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture Generic Non-core Registers (rev 02)
7f:00.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QuickPath Architecture System Address Decoder (rev 02)
7f:02.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Link 0 (rev 02)
7f:02.1 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor QPI Physical 0 (rev 02)
7f:02.2 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)
7f:02.3 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Core Processor Reserved (rev 02)

@malcolmlewis - what makes you think I’m running something other than intel?

@oldcpu - I’m fairly inexperienced with linux. Linux is something I’m wanting to learn. i dabble with it every few months and im slowing picking things up. when things dont work i am struggling to work out why it failed and what is needed to get it working. google usually works, but in this case, i cant find any info on installing the intel drivers.

i’ll grab the 11.4 rc2 iso and see if that is any better.

7

IMHO the following command is more useful than just ‘/sbin/lspci’ :


/sbin/lspci -nnk

and then post the section associated with the line that has VGA Compatible controller (ie that line and a few lines underneath).

Its possible the SuSE-GmbH packaged intellegacy driver may give better performance.

8

oSUSE 11.4rc4

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0046] (rev 12)
Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Device [1025:0358]
Kernel driver in use: i915

give me 5mins to reboot, i’ll do the same in 11.3, just to be sure… (11.4 is very tasty btw - looking forward to release next week :))

9

Hi
When you quoted 350m that’s an ATI card reference, some come with dual
vga controllers intel and NVidia, so just wanted to be sure.

350m must be the CPU reference then :wink:

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.32.27-0.2-default
up 10 days 17:02, 4 users, load average: 0.01, 0.13, 0.09
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - Driver Version: 260.19.26

10

maybe i’ve misunderstood the intel cpu naming and confused matters.
i presumed from the name “core i3-350m”, the 350m was the graphics model on it.

i know theres a 330m too, and from the quick research i did, reviews said it was graphically slower.
i didnt realise ATI used a similar/identical name.

weirdly, my youtube flickering has disappeared and it seems fine now. the only difference is the laptop when into sleep overnight (definitely not shutdown; it prompted for password on resume).

i don’t believe it - a fully working linux install! :smiley:
is it right that ishould see a bit of xorg activity under ‘top’, when moving between windows? i’d expect a bit, but it’s claiming 25% momentarily. it doesnt seem to be causing issues, but higher than i’d expect.

11

Well, I note 8086:0046. When I search the thinkwiki on this I find some information on Intel HD Graphics which suggests

A very recent Linux distribution with kernel 2.6.33 and Intel Xorg driver 2.11 or newer is recommended.

Note that XVideo (Xv) playback at certain frame sizes does not work properly unless you have at least version 2.12 of the Intel Xorg driver.

Well openSUSE-11.3 has the 2.6.34 kernal and 2.12 intel X org driver.

OpenSUSE-11.4 will have a 2.6.37 kernel and 2.14 intel X org driver.

Reading the above, I don’t think my intellegacy suggestion was appropriate.

What was 11.4 RC2 behaviour like ?

12

Hey guys. So, let me get this straight. Core i3s and i5s should not be using the “i915” driver? I’ve got the same GPU (on a Core i5 Lenova Thinkpad T510) with the same id, 8086:0046. I’m also using OpenSuse 11.4 64 bit, and I see that my computer is using the “i915” driver, and that the xorg-x11-driver-video-intel-legacy package is installed.

I haven’t noticed anything very strange on normal 2D graphics operation, but I’ve noticed that strange things happen during opengl acceleration. Yeah, I know, this isn’t a gaming card, but it should be able to play light opengl games fine :slight_smile:

So, I guess I’m asking, what driver should I use? The Core i5 isn’t that old, so I doubt I should use “legacy” drivers. Where do I get the non-legacy drivers? Is there a package I can install?