Intel HD 3000 Graphics support for xorg?

[tbessie]

Hi all...

So I just bought a new Thinkpad T420 with Sandy Bridge chipset and Intel HD 3000 onboard graphics.

I noticed, however, that performance is pretty laggy, and there is nothing provided for "Additional Drivers" (i.e. proprietary drivers, usually for graphics).

Does anyone know the current state of support for this graphics setup? I found this site: http://intellinuxgraphics.org/ but I'd have to compile the latest drivers for myself, which I'd rather not bother with if there are prebuilt packages out there somewhere.

Looking at Synaptic Package Manager, it shows the latest version of the Intel graphics drivers available don't even appear to cover this generation of chips.

Does anyone know when full support of Intel HD 3000 (etc) graphics will become part of Ubuntu, even as a backport?

- Tim

[wolfen69]

You could install the xorg-edgers ppa and install the latest intel drivers via synaptic.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

then

sudo apt-get update

Or, you could try out ubuntu 11.04, as I hear the drivers are updated.

[tbessie]

You could install the xorg-edgers ppa and install the latest intel drivers via synaptic.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

then

sudo apt-get update

Or, you could try out ubuntu 11.04, as I hear the drivers are updated.

Thanks for the suggestions - I took a look at the xorg edgers "statement" https://edge.launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers - doesn't make it sound very safe (if I want a working system).

I might just try out the 11.04 beta. In fact, I'm running one copy of Ubuntu on the bare metal, and another in VirtualBox, so I'll try it out in VirtualBox first to see if I like it and how stable it is. Of course, that's not the best test since it won't necessarily be using the native drivers for most things, but it'll give me an idea of it.

- Tim

[tbessie]

Well, I just updated to the 11.04 development release, and I can say three things:

1. Graphics seemed to work better (I could get the higher resolution I needed), although that might be due to a setting I missed the first time

2. Graphics on the laptop screen itself was often filled with lots of scary-looking vertical lines at various points, so there are things still to fix

3. I hate the new desktop interface

- Tim

[Wlo]

Do you have switchable graphics? If so go into the BIOS and set graphics to Discrete rather than Optimus. This will mean Ubuntu will always use the full blown gfx card rather than the onboard one. You'll use more power though.

[mastablasta]

Well, I just updated to the 11.04 development release,

well it means "you used" the edgers PPA as it will be part of 11.04 as stable and then new edgers will be out there.

[VogonZarniwoop]

> 3. I hate the new desktop interface

If you mean Unity, don't worry, not so many people like it . But you can change back to Gnome classic, or I'd recommend installing Kubuntu. KDE 4.6 is shaping up pretty nicely these days. There are a few rough edges such as the network manager still crashes if you look at it funny, but generally speaking it's a decently usable desktop and hasn't succumbed to the "dumb it down for the thumb-typing crowd" philosophy that seems to be infesting everything else these days. It has come a long ways since the early 4.x releases.

[no.human.being]

I'm having Ubuntu 11.04 (Alternate installation, because I needed to set up full disk encryption with dm-crypt) installed on a Lenovo Thinkpad T420 device with an Intel Core i3 2310m inside, which features an integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 graphics processor on the same die.

First question I have is: How can I find out, which graphics driver is used for the HD Graphics? It seems not to be used as a VESA device, since "glxinfo | grep direct" yields "direct rendering: Yes" so it seems that some Intel-specific device driver is in use, I'd just like to know the exact name of the module.

Now to the real problem: When I connect an external monitor via the DVI-D output on the notebook's docking station (connecting one to a DisplayPort on the docking station or the notebook itself would probably yield the same results, but I cannot verify this since all the monitors I'm using are DVI-only) both, the internal and external screens show a black image with only a mouse pointer on it. I'm able to move the pointer around from one monitor to the other, but that's all. It does not display anything and it will also not respond to a click in the top left corner for example (where the system menu sits), so it's most likely not only a problem related to the frame buffer not getting redrawn. I can shut the system down using magic sysrq (switching to a console with Strg + Fx would probably also work), but that's all. No X11.

When I boot the system with the external monitor connected, it will show a black screen as soon as X11 is started. The GDM login does not show up.

Anyone knows, how to fix this issue, so that I can use the notebook with an external monitor? Anything I need to change in a configuration file or any additional packages I need to install? Or is it just that X.Org or Unity (don't know exactly, whether this is an X11-related or a Unity-related problem) simply don't support SandyBridge hardware well enough, so I'll have to wait until a patch arrives?

Thank you very much.

[fjgaude]

You can see the driver used with this command:

sudo lshw -C video
  *-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 18
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:43 memory:fb800000-fbbfffff memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:ff00(size=8)

The i915 seems to be what Unbuntu 11.04 is using with my box.

[mgbaron]

Hi everyone,

I just took delivery of my new ThinkPad 420s this morning with Intel HD Graphics 3000 acceleration and I'm seeing the same problem as no.human.being. When I connect my 1920x1080 monitor via DisplayPort --> hdmi, on the connected monitor I only see the title bar and mouse pointer, the rest of the screen is black.

Also, the desktop search seems really sluggish. Not the search itself, but the GUI which lags several seconds behind my typing and sometimes hangs up unpredictably.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Matt

Not sure if this is helpful:

>sudo lshw -C video
[sudo] password for matt: 
  *-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:49 memory:d0000000-d03fffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff ioport:4000(size=64)