Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Running Ubuntu Karmic on Intel 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset

My daughter's Desktop which I use while at Bhubaneswar has this chipset:

$ lspci -nn | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device [8086:2562] (rev 03)

I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on this machine and it is having random freezes. I have submitted a bug report but I don't think the bug is going to be resolved very soon. There is another bug resembling mine (my bug may be a duplicate) which has been submitted upstream on freedesktop.org but I don't think that it may be resolved soon.

I decided to change to vesa driver but there was no xorg.conf. I used the following xorg.conf:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

There is no freeze using vesa driver.

Update on Jan 1 2010
There is some activity on the bug report. The commit in the Kernel responsible for this bug has been identified and informed upstream. Meanwhile I have found that if I use IceWM instead of gnome there is no freeze with intel driver. If you are comfortable with IceWM you can also use it.

9 comments:

okhomenko said...

So did it freeze after that?

Unknown said...

I found your blog post searching for information regarding a similar issue with revision 1 of the same chipset. I hate that you've had the same problem, but I'm glad I'm not alone. I've not noticed anything in particular that causes it. It doesn't seem entirely random because it doesn't happen when I'm not using it. Looks like I'll be trying the VESA driver myself. Not as if the Intel driver's helping me any. In fact, it froze while typing this. All I can say is I'm glad Chrome saved my post when I restored my session...

Unknown said...

If you're just looking for a xorg.conf file that works in 9.10 , here's mine.
PS. Desktop effects are all off -- if you're looking for effects, can't help ya.


Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"

Modeline "1024x768@60" 63.5 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 798 -Hsync +Vsync
Option "PreferredMode" "1024x768@60"
Gamma 1.0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Virtual 1024 768
Modes "1024x768@60"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Unknown said...

PS - The above is for integrated Brookdale...

Unknown said...

I think it's supposed to be using the i915 driver

Kamalakar Agashe said...

Reply to xomavan
No there is no freeze after using vesa driver.

Reply to brad
I am not looking for xorg.conf that works or something. There is a problem of random freezes on Intel 82845G/GL chipset and I am forced to use vesa driver and I have posted the xorg.conf I am using.

Anonymous said...

I know this is more than a month old, but can you tell me what was happened when your system froze?

I want to know because I think I have a similar problem and need to change my driver, but I don't want to mess with it if that isn't the problem.

Also, can you tell me which vesa driver you installed to replace the Intel 82845G? And how exactly does one install it?

Kamalakar Agashe said...

Reply to kevinkorea
I have read your blog on Livejournal My advice to you is to use Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope instead of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala. You will not experience the problems you are facing now in the previous Ubuntu version. You can download it from this link.

Anonymous said...

The vesa driver solution is not necessary. The real problem is that the current intel driver package doesn't quite work well enough with the older hardware. The solution is to go back to the older package. I had the same problem you had. Do the following, it worked for me.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReinhardTartler/X/RevertingIntelDriverTo2.4

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