How to install Intel Drivers

Dai_trying · 2017-11-03 09:51

Cliff_G wrote:

the expression "if it ain't broke don't fix it" seems appropriate.

That's my favourite

But I also had a problem with video on my Dell when I used Orion and ended up having to install newer kernel and newer xorg~intel stuff, but when I switched to Scorpion it was all fine (using i915 driver too), but I noticed you are already on Scorpion so not very useful input (sorry).
If you are sure the screen should give 1280*1024 then I would try a re-install as it is possible something went wrong with your initial attempt.

Cliff_G · 2017-11-03 18:22

I can stick with 1024*768 for now - Ctrl-minus is your friend (at least on browsing)

Bigger problem is actually that the video controller/driver combination doesn't play video very well, even a simple-ish Youtube video. Slow, laggy, freezes, locks up machine responsiveness. Was OK on XP. Is also similarly poor on other Linux distros incl Xubuntu and even the most cut-down one Lubuntu.

q4osteam · 2017-11-03 18:52

We could suggest you to try to install Q4OS Orion, the old stable but still supported Q4OS version, it could work better on this machine. You can download oldstable Q4OS Orion from here https://www.q4os.org/downloads3.html

Cliff_G · 2017-11-03 19:02

Well, to test the laggy video behaviour, I uninstalled xserver-xorg-video-intel again, this time from Synaptic (which I'm sure does the same under the bonnet as sudo etc etc), and made sure I did a proper shutdown using Turn Off.

It broke again (it booted to command line only - I got it back ok by reinstalling -video-intel but had to work hard to make sure I got a true restart).

So basically it looks to me like when removing the Intel driver to "let KMS to configure the display" either (i) what should be present to let KMS configure the display is actually not initially installed, or (ii) by removing xserver-xorg-video-intel it's also removing something necessary which it shouldn't have. So I'd say that this looks like a bug to work on.

Dai_trying · 2017-11-03 21:05

Given that it's a pretty old machine I would say modern video is probably going to give you a hard time, could you post the output of inxi -F (you may need to install it first sudo apt-get install inxi) it might give a better idea of what (if anything) can be done to ease your pain

Cliff_G · 2017-11-03 22:08

OK, will post, tomorrow, after I unbreak it from somethign else (see post I'm about to post)

crosscourt · 2017-11-03 22:12

915GM Im surprised you said ran well with XP as that wasnt my experience. Its slow and honestly isnt going to get better on top of the fact that the processor isnt very fast either{graphics dependent on cpu ). What processor and speed are you using? Honestly there is a line where hardware becomes an issue and sticking to 1024x768 will help performance quite a bit versus a higher resolution.

Again Ive got 915GM systems that run Orion 1.8.8 at 1024x768 with decent performance but its simply not a good experience overall.

There are times where making software changes and tweaks simply wont compensate for the age of a system.

Last edited by crosscourt (2017-11-03 22:15)

q4os_user · 2017-11-03 23:45

Maybe he should try to add custom resolutions if he really wants to run higher than 1024x768 (of course this method has to be adapted for his configuration)?

I hope Cliff_G that you're not attempting to play 60 FPS YouTube videos on this machine?

Last edited by q4os_user (2017-11-03 23:53)

crosscourt · 2017-11-04 01:29

With the 915GM thats not going to work as youve got a video bios that in most cases doesnt have newer firmware, drivers that are limited and wont be updated, and bios issues that many times preclude custom resolutions. As I mentioned in the other post, I tried that with WinXP and a 915GM laptop and had no success.

If he goes to a higher resolution and figures it out, his hardware will be very slow and laggy given it already is laggy at 1024x768 and the older cpu is handling most of the graphics duties.915gm supports Pentium 4 processors, no dual core support which honestly today isnt going to cut it. Pentium D is about as old as you can go but better off with an early Conroe Core 2 duo as the lowest choice.

Better advice would beto buy a used system thats no more than 7 years old with at least a core 2 duo processor over 2ghz and 4gb of ram or better and enjoy the performance.

Last edited by crosscourt (2017-11-04 03:20)

bin · 2017-11-04 08:19

q4osteam wrote:

We could suggest you to try to install Q4OS Orion, the old stable but still supported Q4OS version, it could work better on this machine. You can download oldstable Q4OS Orion from here https://www.q4os.org/downloads3.html

Be even better if he had easy access to the LiveCD version of Orion

Cliff_G · 2017-11-06 12:39

From the altdeski thread, we had:
----------
> q4osteam wrote:
>
>> Dai_trying wrote:
>> Yes, I just looked through the inxi output and I can't see anything "out of place"
>> so would have to guess this will be a limitation of the hardware/software setup.
>
> Yes, we share this opinion, as debug files reported previously show the same result.
> And yes, there could be still a chance to achieve better resolution by hacking of
> xorg.conf configuration file, but with possible side effects.

Thanks for these comments.

I still have a maybe dumb question which is why should the Intel Drivers not work with full functionality? or is post #2 from this thread saying that those drivers are already in the xserver-xorg-video-intel package? Definitely?

Re. post #6 might "the default Debian Intel Driver" be different from the specific Intel driver?

if you go to downloadcenter.intel.com/product/81510/Graphics-Drivers-for-Mobile-Intel-915GM-GMS-910GML-Express-Chipset-Family and click the More down-arrow there's a total of 4 Linux options, up to 5th Jan 2006

Once I get a backup I'm prepared to give an Intel install a go

Dai_trying · 2017-11-06 20:23

You could try using the driver direct from intel, but I very much doubt it will give you any better results as they usually just update it for new chips. Also you most likely will suffer a very poor screen refresh rate (like I did with old machine). The method I used to achieve the higher resolution was to manually edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf ( this doesn't exist on most modern systems so you will need to create it first) and enter the correct information there, below is what mine contained from my ancient system but you would need to do a little research to find the correct values for your screen I definitely would not advise to use these same values without checking first.

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
	Boardname	"NVIDIA GeForce2 Integrated (generic)"
	Busid		"PCI:1:0:0"
	Driver		"nv"
	Screen	0
	Vendorname	"NVIDIA"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
	Vendorname	"Compaq"
	Modelname	"Compaq 7500 Color Monitor"
	Horizsync	30.0-70.0
	Vertrefresh	50.0-140.0
  modeline  "800x600@60" 40.0 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 +hsync +vsync
  modeline  "1024x768@75" 78.8 1024 1040 1136 1312 768 769 772 800 +hsync +vsync
  modeline  "1024x768@70" 75.0 1024 1048 1184 1328 768 771 777 806 -vsync -hsync
  modeline  "1024x768@60" 65.0 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806 -vsync -hsync
  modeline  "1280x1024@60" 108.0 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
	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		"1280x1024@60"	"1024x768@60"	"1024x768@70"	"1024x768@75"	"800x600@60"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier	"Default Layout"
  screen 0 "Default Screen" 0 0
EndSection

This setup got my screen working with 1280x1024 but like I said earlier a pretty laggy display YMMV

Cliff_G · 2017-11-06 21:34

Thanks but that would take me days to work out what I was doing, and with your recommendation that it might not work, I think I'll pass!

Dai_trying · 2017-11-06 22:03

Probably a wise decision, I have not had to implement these type of fixes for a few years now as Linux has become a lot more user friendly (yes it used to be a real nightmare to get anything to work) so it's always good to know these things but less likely they help in today's machines.

crosscourt · 2017-11-06 23:25

Problem here is the video bios has issues and there is no new firmware that Im aware of so it would end up not working. Many Intel IGPs though do have updates that solve the issue very quickly such as the 945g chipset.

Driver change wont affect the video bios as that requires a bios update and I havent seen one that works so far.

Last edited by crosscourt (2017-11-06 23:28)

Cliff_G · 2017-11-09 14:16

This argument is correct if the two Intel drivers - for Windows and for Linux are different. If they are the same, I struggle to see the argument, since on Windows there was never a problem with the video; worked fine. But we will probably never find out which is true unless anyone knows where they keep the spec sheets? =:-o

Last edited by Cliff_G (2017-11-09 14:17)

crosscourt · 2017-11-09 21:04

I had issues in Windows as well so if you didnt thats is interesting.

Q4OS Forum

#26 2017-11-03 09:51

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#27 2017-11-03 18:22

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#28 2017-11-03 18:52

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#29 2017-11-03 19:02

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#30 2017-11-03 21:05

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#31 2017-11-03 22:08

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#32 2017-11-03 22:12

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#33 2017-11-03 23:45

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#34 2017-11-04 01:29

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#35 2017-11-04 08:19

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#36 2017-11-06 12:39

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#37 2017-11-06 20:23

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#38 2017-11-06 21:34

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#39 2017-11-06 22:03

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#40 2017-11-06 23:25

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#41 2017-11-09 14:16

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

#42 2017-11-09 21:04

Re: How to install Intel Drivers

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