Arch Linux

Klemvor

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2012-09-29

Posts: 20

Strange behaviour of Intel 82815 with KMS and X11

Dear all, these days I installed Arch Linux on an old machine, a Cappuccino TX3. Cappuccino TX3 is a very old mini PC, in my case mounting a 1.2GHz Celeron, and according to the technical details linked before it mounts an integrated Intel card namely the Intel 82815. Arch Linux installation went fine, but I am having some problems in starting the KMS and the X11. I have installed the xf86-video-intel driver which according to the wki seem to support this series of Intel graphics. Upon rebooting I noticed that the KMS do not start. Using

lsmod

I saw that apparently no module connected with the Intel graphics was loaded. I tried loading the i810fb module

modprobe i810fb

and KMS suddenly start working. I tried then to start a light-weighted DE

exec dwm

but the X11 immediately crashed and I was kicked out of my session, returning to the login screen. I think that an error code was produced in this procedure, but I wasn't able to read it since it disappeared too quickly. I have tried to figure out the reasons for this behaviour, but I was not even able to find the proper log files if any.
Furthermore the strange facts are not limited to this. Since at least I was able to obtain the KMS by manually starting the i810fb module I tried to have it loaded on boot by modifying the mkintincpio as following:

MODULE="i810fb"

However the result was quite unexpected: upon generating a new linux image and rebooting the system showed no KMS, but using

lsmod | grep i810fb

I found that the module was loaded. So I've got an unusual behaviour, since manually loading the module it all seems to work (except the X11...), but loading it on boot KMS does not work. Someone has some ideas on how to fix it? I would like to have a have at least a minimal DE running on the Cappuccino TX3.

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“Violence,” came the retort, “is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
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