framebuffer woes

gaudencio · 2010-01-22 21:05:22

hi, not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but there's no 'general advice' group so....feel free to move it. Anyway, I've been trying to understand this framebuffer business and need a bit of help. For some weird reason every time I start X on my netbook, when I switch back to the console its gone into high resolution. It seems it's running through the framebuffer, because the /dev/fb0 file exists after starting x, and I can run fbi/fim without a problem. Without starting x, fbi complains there's no framebuffer. So, that's all fine and dandy, but I wanted to get a handle on the situation so I searched for framebuffer and found the new uvesafb drivers. I followed the instructions, and all went fine, though the resolution is wrong and doesn't seem to want to switch, but the key problem is that now if I start x, then switch back to a console, the screen goes funny and the whole computer locks up. clearly some conflict with the original framebuffer then....but how to solve it. I could just uninstall the new drivers and go back to how it was before, but in that case I'm left wondering how I run the console in the framebuffer without starting x. Presumably it has to be insterted into mkinitcpio. conf in the same way? Also, I presume to remove it I do: mkinitcpio -p kernel26 after taking it out of the conf file? probably obvious, but just want to check I'm not making some huge blunder

kfgz · 2010-01-23 10:01:03

What graphic card is in your netbook? What driver you are using?

Last edited by kfgz (2010-01-23 10:01:37)

gaudencio · 2010-01-23 16:13:37

00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

sorry, should have mentioned that before

benob · 2010-01-23 17:09:14

Your story is not very clear. Why is it a problem that when you switch to console it goes to high resolution? Did you do a proper framebuffer install for intel (loading the i915 module, setting i915.modeset=1 at boot...)?

There is a known bug in the current kernel with intel drivers. When switching to console, your display gets garbled. Did you try to disable compositing?

gaudencio · 2010-01-23 19:21:02

sorry for the post being confusing, I was confused! I still don't really understand what the framebuffer is and where it fits in to the whole linux system, and there's no arch wiki page on it (except on the uvesafb)....hence I'm still in the dark. To answer your question, no, I've never done a proper framebuffer install for intel, I didn't know there was such a thing. It all came about simply from trying to understand why my console was going into high resolution after I switched to X, which only started a week or two ago. I'd barely even heard of frame buffer before that.
As to the problem with it going into high res - it's a poxy little netbook screen, and the resolution it flicks to is very high - much higher than 1024 - hence I need a magnifying glass to work on the command line, which isn't particularly productive.

shacristo · 2010-01-23 22:43:33

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel

Follow the instructions to set up KMS using the simplest method

Anikom15 · 2010-01-23 22:52:54

Ahhh yes, the ever complicated intel graphics bugs. Do they ever end?

Arch Linux

#1 2010-01-22 21:05:22

framebuffer woes

#2 2010-01-23 10:01:03

Re: framebuffer woes

#3 2010-01-23 16:13:37

Re: framebuffer woes

#4 2010-01-23 17:09:14

Re: framebuffer woes

#5 2010-01-23 19:21:02

Re: framebuffer woes

#6 2010-01-23 22:43:33

Re: framebuffer woes

#7 2010-01-23 22:52:54

Re: framebuffer woes

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