Guide to Get the Best Performace from the GMA 500

[maddentim]

Well, I installed precise on my dell mini 12. It went ok overall. I had to switch to tty1 on restart lightdm. I put console=tty1 in my grub as directed, but I also have to switch to tty1 and back to tty7 to get the display right. if not, I get the screen only in the top half of the display. Also, the wireless didn't work. Reinstalling the broadcom sta driver fixed it. Suspend seems to work, but on resume the display is garbled I switched to tty1 and tried restarting lightdm, but not dice.

[PilotPaul]

Brief Instructions for Precise on Acer Aspire One 751h...

1. Boot live USB session from USB stick (32-bit version)

2. Once booted and a half distorted screen is obtained, switch to console 1 (ctrl-alt-f1) and restart lightdm (sudo service lightdm restart)

3. Install as normal

4. At the end of the installation, reboot into recovery mode, enable write access to the file system (pick the fsck option) and select root access

5. edit with nano or vi (personal preference) /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and blacklist acer_wmi

6. edit /etc/grub.d/10_linux and find the line containing "if "$word" == splash. Edit the next line to read:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="$GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DE FAULT"

7. edit /etc/default/grub and modify the default options as follows:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="acpi_backlight=vendor console=tty1"

8. To enable suspend type "mv /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/99video /usr/lib/pm-utils"

9. Run update-grub

10. Reboot and enjoy!

This should leave you with a working system with great 2d performance, brightness control and suspend. The only drawback I can find is the lack of 3d or Xv acceleration which means full motion video is not possible (I need it for MythTV as I use this system as a frontend) - for that you will need to use EMGD and I suggest that this is best installed as version 1.8 under Natty (instructions on wiki) - Oneiric is a non-starter as kernels from 3.0 until 3.2 wont support suspend (in my view vital on a netbook).

If anyone has any different/better experiences please post.

[bodhi.zazen]

When you boot from the live USB ...

Edit the command line , add "console=tty1 acer_wmi.blacklist=yes acpi_backlight=vendor"

Well, you can skip "acer_wmi.blacklist=yes acpi_backlight=vendor" if you wish.

But if you add "console=tty1" to the boot options you do not then need to restart lightdm.

Otherwise nice write up, perhaps add it to the wiki

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne/AO751h

[PilotPaul]

When you boot from the live USB ...

Edit the command line , add "console=tty1 acer_wmi.blacklist=yes acpi_backlight=vendor"

Well, you can skip "acer_wmi.blacklist=yes acpi_backlight=vendor" if you wish.

But if you add "console=tty1" to the boot options you do not then need to restart lightdm.

Otherwise nice write up, perhaps add it to the wiki

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne/AO751h

Sure you can do it that way too...

I think overall the 751h works pretty well now...but longer term I suspect its a dead duck. Mine is almost 3 years old now and I will almost certainly replace it this summer. I suspect that Precise will be the last Ubuntu release I try and run on it. Shame really as I think Poulsbo is a superbly capable chipset that enables a very low powered platform to deliver extremely high graphics performance for the price as long as the appropriate drivers are available.

Still I have enjoyed this little system - I travel a lot so the compactness is a real advantage to me. I will miss it, and have thoroughly enjoyed helping to get it working under Ubuntu.

[bodhi.zazen]

Sure you can do it that way too...

I think overall the 751h works pretty well now...but longer term I suspect its a dead duck. Mine is almost 3 years old now and I will almost certainly replace it this summer.

Well, support (psb_gfx) should continue, but yea the netbook is now long in the tooth.

Next time I purchase I am going with a netbook with linux pre-installed.

The number of GMA500 users is going down almost daily.

My 751h refused to boot past the BIOS screen for a while a few days ago. If it breaks I will not be repairing it.

I agree, the graphics card has potential, too bad intel did not push for better linux support.

[Crucias]

Is installing EMGD recommended over sticking with the default Precise driver? (To avoid the black screen thing as the tty1 thing doesn't work)

[bodhi.zazen]

Is installing EMGD recommended over sticking with the default Precise driver? (To avoid the black screen thing as the tty1 thing doesn't work)

As far as I know, the EMGD driver is not an option in 12.04 and is in testing in 11.10.

As of the 12.04 release, support for the EMGD driver is a full Ubuntu release cycle behind.

A better question, what makes you think you need the EMGD driver ?

[Crucias]

As far as I know, the EMGD driver is not an option in 12.04 and is in testing in 11.10.

As of the 12.04 release, support for the EMGD driver is a full Ubuntu release cycle behind.

A better question, what makes you think you need the EMGD driver ?

When I boot the Slate I get a purple screen, then a black screen and the login screen sound. This basically makes the device useless to me as it needs the onscreen keyboard to function. If I plugin a USB keyboard I can do the Alt+F1 -> restart lightdm thing, however this is only an option at home.

Once I am logged in, everything works wonderfully. Aside from the WiFi, 12.04 has WiFi bugs, but they'll patch that out.

[bodhi.zazen]

When I boot the Slate I get a purple screen, then a black screen and the login screen sound. This basically makes the device useless to me as it needs the onscreen keyboard to function. If I plugin a USB keyboard I can do the Alt+F1 -> restart lightdm thing, however this is only an option at home.

Once I am logged in, everything works wonderfully. Aside from the WiFi, 12.04 has WiFi bugs, but they'll patch that out.

EMGD is not needed to solve that problem.

Install Ubuntu 12.04 and add in the grub modifications as outlined on the wiki.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupp...Poulsbo#A12.04

If you have some need for EMGD, personally I would advise Ubuntu 11.04.

[Crucias]

EMGD is not needed to solve that problem.

Install Ubuntu 12.04 and add in the grub modifications as outlined on the wiki.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupp...Poulsbo#A12.04

I tried that, it doesn't work. I still get a black screen. Weird thing is it worked perfectly in the LiveCD

I can boot into recovery, pick failsafeX (which returns an error - no screens) then pick normal (when we return to that menu) and it works, but usually with some distortion. I have to login and logout to completely fix it using this method

OK update, what is really really weird is if I boot to recovery I cannot use the menu with my hardware keys. So I kill and restart the device then boot normally and it works. It seems it just wants to mess with my head