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I recently put together an htpc with an Intel Core i3-2100T on an Intel DH67GD. No separate graphics card, just using the sandybridge graphics. I'm trying to install Arch on it, and then add XBMC. I've been running various flavors of Linux since the mid-late '90s, but this is my first time using Arch and my first time using Intel's integrated graphics. I'll admit that I've become somewhat of a GUI-cripple since my early days using Slackware, but building this Arch-based system is really knocking the rust off quickly.
Unfortunately, I can't get X running because I appear to be stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to KMS. When I first installed Arch, one of my first actions was to run pacman -Syu. On my first reboot after that, the screen went blank just as udev started loading modules. With some help from doorknob60 in the Multimedia section of the forums, I found this line in the wiki entry on the Intel graphics drivers:
Note: Downgrade to kernel 2.6.31.6-1 or disable modesetting with kernel boot parameter if you get a blank screen during boot process with Intel GMA 950
The kernel that's on the install disc I made is newer than 2.6.31.6-1, but apparently it's old enough that it doesn't cause the blank screen during boot.
I tried a lot of other things along the way, but this was the only thing that would keep my screen working through boot. I initially just disabled modesetting in my menu.lst, but I need to get X working, so that's not a permanent solution for me. Instead, I did a clean re-install, and this time I added kernel26 to my IgnorePkg list in pacman.conf. I figured I would just stick with the older kernel until somebody fixes the newer kernels. Unfortunately, when I tried to run X, I got an error message in the logs that no kernel modesetting driver was available. I made sure that KMS was explicitly enabled at boot, but I still got the same error from X. I did a little bit of digging on the internet and found out why: the reason that the older kernels don't cause the blank screen during boot is that they don't support KMS at all. So, apparently my choices are:
Use an out-of-date kernel that doesn't support KMS, which means that X won't work.
Use an up-to-date kernel but explicitly disable KMS, which means that X won't work.
Use an up-to-date kernel with KMS enabled, which means that my screen goes blank every time I boot, making my system completely impossible to use.
Is there anything I can do to resolve this conundrum, other than wait for somebody to fix the kernel and/or the intel drivers?
Last edited by lucasjung (2011-08-26 20:27:20)
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Hi there,
I've been out of the linux tweaking game for a while, so as a result my whole system is outdated, and im not up with the updates on this issue, so someone please correct me if im wrong in saying this issue still hasnt been rectified on gma950 and similar cards. The issue is the backlight doesnt come get re-initialised for these cards, a simple method to bring the backlight back on is to run setpci and re-initialise it (run as root):
setpci -s 00:02.0 F4.B=00Then you can always make the script persistent across boots by editing /etc/rc.local (also as a superuser,) and just simply add the setpci command above to it.
Note: As /etc/rc.local is a multi user startup script, this means that it is at most a temporary fix and resumption from acpi events such as laptop functions like re-opening the lid after the backlight is shut off from closing it, or disk/ram suspending, won't re-run the script, so you will have to edit acpi scripts (and possibly install 3rd party applications) to re-run the setpci command to kick the backlight back into action after these events. If you desire this functionality, /sys/power contains a couple of useful files you can manipulate with scripts, and pm-utils would be a good place to start looking.
AJ
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