Guide to Get the Best Performace from the GMA 500

[alfrenovsky]

There's a way to buy a GMA 500 chipset computer for the developers?
I understand lucazade has no GMA500 to try.

[lucazade]

There's a way to buy a GMA 500 chipset computer for the developers?
I understand lucazade has no GMA500 to try.

I've got a gma500 device but i've lent it to my girlfriend so i can test it rarely.

[fkefer]

I have such a machine, with 10.04 installed just yesterday, and for one I do have some development experience (though my knowledge to kernel development is not more than some wired driver for a Linux-driven autonomous robot 5 years ago, but that's another story; definitely no Xorg experience though), and I have some vital interest in getting this baby up and running properly again. I helped with the SIS-crap-chipset-machines 10 years ago, I might be able to help now too.

I'm - just as a couple of other's here - still @ work, my laptop running next to me but with no internet connection. I hope I'll find some time later this day to try and work with that.

On a side note, I was able to cope with the i915 grub hack, but never got X to display with the correct resolution (playing around with kernel params as well). Hope my degrade to "almost-normal-user" in the time since I finished studies didn't add too much harm

UPDATE: I've just seen the google code repo getting populated; it's basically what's in the tarballs that are linked in post #496.
Wouldn't it make more sense to get the repo into some checkout-compile-run state rather than checkout-unpack-apply-patches-compile-run one? Just my 2c...

[alfrenovsky]

I have an Asus 1101HAB, dual boot Lucid and WinXP. I tried alfrenovsky's fix and it sort of works.

First problem is that it makes WinXP unbootable. I don't understand the new grub well enough to solve this.

Second problem is that the screen reverts to 1024x768 after a suspend.

1. The grub lines in 40_custom loads before the menu.
   You can put the 915resolution lines in 10_linux instead, in the line 77, just after "recordfail". That way it will load only when you choose a linux bootable OS.
   You can allways add some code to hear when your grub lines are executing:
   

   insmod play
   play 480 440 1

2. The suspend works for me, I have a Dell mini 10. I have no xorg.conf, I let X autodetect everything and it loads vesa driver.
   I have NO vga= option in grub. My console loads in normal text mode (No framebuffer) before X.

[jbernardo]

UPDATE: I've just seen the google code repo getting populated; it's basically what's in the tarballs that are linked in post #496.
Wouldn't it make more sense to get the repo into some checkout-compile-run state rather than checkout-unpack-apply-patches-compile-run one? Just my 2c...

I'm doing it now as we speak. I am also at work, so the first ham fisted attempt was transferring the tarballs. Now I am unpacking, adding lucazade's stuff, then will update with mine. In a couple of hours it should be usable.

[m0dcm]

Hey Guys,
Nice to see someone is trying their best to get the Poulsbo driver to work under 10.04!
I know I said I had a reply from Intel, and here's the latest one from them....

-------------

For support of the Intel GMA500 product, please go to the product support page!

The Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 500 driver for Intel® Atom™ processor for Mobile Internet Devices supports the following operating systems:

Windows*:

• Windows 7* (32-bit versions)
• Windows Vista* (32-bit versions)
• Windows XP* (32-bit versions)

Linux*:

• Canonical* Ubuntu*
• Asianux* (Consortium consisting of Red Flag*, Haansoft*, and Miracle*)
• Moblin*

Operating System:
Windows Vista*, Windows XP Starter Edition*, Windows 7*, Linux*, Windows XP Professional*, Windows XP Home Edition*

-------------

I've replied back to this asking them if they really do support Linux and why don't they put their words into action and bring a driver out that all the distro's can work with. I'll post any reply I get back from them, if any!!

[fkefer]

@alfrenovsky:
thanks for your insight, i do now better understand where things belong (all the 915resolution stuff is grub code, also setting gfxmode=xxx is grub, not linux).

However, i'm still stuck with the standard (non-fb?) console at low-res while booting (the cursor top left is pretty big..., once it switches to plymouth i get the 1024x786 res again, which then also is the X res. No slow-but-nice 1366x768 for me

[fkefer]

I'm doing it now as we speak. I am also at work, so the first ham fisted attempt was transferring the tarballs. Now I am unpacking, adding lucazade's stuff, then will update with mine. In a couple of hours it should be usable.

Ah, I see, we're all stuck with the money-earning process

Good to see that, thanks! As soon as i get back home (might be quite late 2day) i'll try that out.

I'd appreciate to get some overview on where things go; As i said, all i've kernel-wise written so far is a real-time engine system for a robot and the driver for a compass, nothing very X-oriented so far...

[outlaw45]

@m0dcm: I assume you're referring to IEGD.. the last I read was that the current version doesn't support X-server 1.7

@jbernardo: first thing I gonna do if I'm finished at work is updating that repo

[jbernardo]

Repo updated, now you should have all my work on it. Build the driver, the modules, and if you can find why dri is broken, please commit. Let's hope we can get this working fast.