GMA500 (Poulsbo) gma500_gfx

[SuperMaximus]

Dear Experts,

I am using Lubuntu 11.10 on my Sony VAIO P (P31ZRK) with EMGD drivers for GMA500 and overall performance is tolerable, however I can't get video accelerated playback. With GNOME mplayer none of video acceleration menthods work (video 720p is sluggish), in case of
mplayer -va vaapi -vo vaapi [file]
mplayer says Unknown option on the command line: -va

I assume I need to install Mplayer with video acceleration.
Please help me, I am not experienced linux user...

[coffeecat]

I am using Lubuntu 11.10 on my Sony VAIO P (P31ZRK) with EMGD drivers for GMA500 and overall performance is tolerable, however I can't get video accelerated playback.

Please read through this thread. Some comments on EMGD which you appear to have missed:

Note: This thread is NOT for discussing the depreciated EMGD driver. If you need support for the EMGD please contact Intel.

A separate EMGD thread can be created as soon as the gma500 team provides stable packages and adequate documentation.

Let's get some facts straight first:

1. Ubuntu devs have never provided support for EMGD. It's a closed source driver released by Intel, and never has it been the default one. That also means that there has been no switch from EMGD to gma500_gfx.

2. EMGD is not made for Ubuntu, and because of the way it is tied to the kernel and xserver versions, it doesn't work (in Ubuntu) without some major adjustments (xserver downgrade, etc). gma500_gfx, on the other hand is built in, and, though limited, works almost out of the box in Ubuntu and any other distro.

3. Some of the community members (aka gma500 team) were able to make EMGD work in older Ubuntu releases. That work is still available, and is free to use as you see fit. However, the efforts have proved unsustainable in the long run, and I do not know if they will be resumed. As far as I know, EMGD doesn't work at all in 12.04, so you are welcome to take up the job.

There have been claims of getting the EMGD driver working, but I have not been able to get it working and no one has ever posted a working tutorial.

The EMGD or PSB drivers are unsupported in current Ubuntus

As said, EMGD is depreciated, and breaks systems.

[SuperMaximus]

coffeecat,

Considering this situation I consider reverting to Pulsbo drivers (I hope they'll work well with Lubuntu 11.10, which I'm using).
Can you advise me where could I download compiled mplayer-vaapi for usage with VA & Poulsbo?

[TakeLifeEasy]

Thanks for all the responses on Gnome 3. I am still using 12.10 but use it with the Gnome faillback and it seems "usable". From reading the posts above, it does seem this is the end of the life for by Dell mini 1010. It has never worked properly and I have gone from an Intel lover to and Intel hater as they have done nothing to open the code for the driver. Maybe I can use this as a mini file server of something.

I will keep a eye out for any update on the driver in the hope someone can find a miracle!

All I can say is thank you to all the developers who have put so much effort and time into this. Without those guys, I would have binned this rubbish laptop years ago.

[mpw]

Hello,

I tried to use the modesetting-driver to be able to use xrandr. I installed the package from the repo and added the config file.

But when I reboot, the screen stays black. I use Ubuntu 12.04 on a Sony Vaio X series.

Grüße
MPW

[ferry_toth]

Actually instructions have been published here (albeit for Linux Mint): http://www.fit-pc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=2991

Instead of dowloading the emgd drivers from their web site I use the ppa ppa:jools/emgd-xorg1.9 and get mplayer-vaapi from ppa:jools/joggler.

None of this is supported by ubuntu though. And downgrading your kernel is REALLY not something you should do if you are not prepared to loose all your data.

[mpw]

Hello,

as we all know, the main development for the gma500 was done by Alan Cox. He's gone now. Is there any team working on the psb_gfx driver right now? Or are there any plans to patch the EMGD 1.16 for Kernel 3.5 + X-server 1.12? Or did the development stop?

I'm really looking for a gma500 driver with vaapi on actual systems...

Linux Mint 13 with downgraded xserver is not a good option for me, as my touchpad needs at least xserver 1.10 to be supported.

Bye
MPW

[mikewhatever]

I don't think anyone has been developing psb_gfx, following its creation. Alan Cox may have maintained it, making sure it works with newer kernels, and fixing bugs, but there haven't been any news feature wise.
EMDG has been developed by Intel, but the company hasn't shown any interest in a release that would work on Ubuntu, and as GMA500 is already 5 years old, I very much doubt that would change.

[soapstarjoe]

Hey, anyone gotten backlight to work with vaio-p and 12.04? I get the on screen brightness control display when I press the keys, but no actual change in brightness. Googling my heart out I've only found two suggestions, neither of which have worked:

1) "acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor" grub options--display turns off after grub2 ) creating a xorg.conf file with backlight options (can't find the link at the moment:/ )

In 10.10 + psb_gfx ppa, I used to be able to use sudo setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=10 to set the brightness on the commandline, but no love since I installed 12.04

[mikewhatever]

What do you get from ls /sys/class/backlight/?