Intel 945GM graphics acceleration problem Ubuntu jaunty

* glxgears gives about 200fps in it's small window.
* google earth is torturous
* bzflag a bit ... urkish

can we fix it?

Incidentially s/Ctrl-Alt-Backspace|dontzap|xorg.conf edit/Alt-SysRq-[whatever]/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key
http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/sysrq.txt

Changing display resolution doesn't help.
In fact lower resolutions seem very glitchy/bad!
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart
## => hang :(

$ glxinfo  |grep rend
get fences failed: -1
param: 6, val: 0
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GM GEM 20090326 2009Q1 RC2 x86/MMX/SSE2

hmmmm ...

my /etc/X11/xorg.conf is very basic
tried lots of various settings ...
http://codeidol.com/unix/ubuntu/X11/Enable-3-D-Video-Acceleration/
http://grumpymole.blogspot.com/2008/03/ubuntu-hardy-intel-945-graphics-driver.html
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/intel-945gm-and-3d-acceleration-625937/

package "xserver-xorg-video-intel"

This package provides the driver for the Intel i8xx and i9xx family
of chipsets, including i810, i815, i830, i845, i855, i865, i915, i945
and i965 series chips.

This package also provides an XvMC (XVideo Motion Compensation) driver
for i810 and i815 chipsets.

More information about X.Org can be found at:




This package is built from the X.org xf86-video-intel driver module.

Canonical provides critical updates for xserver-xorg-video-intel until October 2010.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=24481
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzM3OQ
via http://forums.opensuse.org/hardware/laptop/418072-video-performance-intel-945gm-kernel-2-6-30-a.html
Intel Releases xf86-video-intel 2.8 RC Driver
Posted by Michael Larabel on July 13, 2009

Hmmm. Very recent.


http://blog.programmerslog.com/?m=200906
http://blog.programmerslog.com/?p=378
How to install the latest Intel drivers on Ubuntu
June 20th, 2009


So anyway I updated my drivers and xorg.conf settings.
But not kernel,
And ... AIE! and AUGH.
I get the ubuntu session login screen okay.
But when gnome logs in I just see the colour on whole screen and mouse pointer. Moving and clicking mouse I can see there's some action going on! Desktop is functional but cannot see anything. Switching away and back gives black screen.

restarting/reconfiguring xorg.conf in various ways doesn't recover.
verious errors starting X, see /var/log/Xorg.* MTRR error, others.

After wailing and gnashing of the teeth the solution was found to kill compiz and any other compiz process.
And System->Preferences->Appearance->Visual Effects->None

hmmm, no we can't fix it!

but at least we recovered from the big mess we made right!

ubuntu upgrade .. phew ... nearly.

ubuntu reinstall okay now, lots of stuff reconfigured/moved over.

User accounts/passwords and groups set.
Home areas linked in.
Loats of software to install. And some to configure.
Happily the gnome logins seem nicer and user switching behaves better.
Sound when multiple users are on is better.

Ouch. Running childsplay kills the display. Can't recover session.

Thunderbird need to install enigmail add-on (gnupg) from ubuntu package as I have thunderbird from a package.
Firefox get stuff in ubuntu packages where possible ...
TODO:
digikam (new version => digikam database ownership)
kids edu games and menus to find them
photo and video areas need moving (and tidy)

Notes for digikam (in ubuntu 9.1):
User can run it using digikam db they don't have write access to.
But creating new album silently fails (could create new dir but not write to db).
Try upload to flikr. Message so something in browser. Click ok when blah.
1. no okay (it is yes or no). 2. No browser appears. 3. click yes and get seg fault.
Upload to picasa same okay/yes/no dialog.
Uploading doesn't start ... ?
In bigview mode when rating photos rated photos as 4 and photo selection would go back to start. annoying.

Unfortunately I don't have time to go and look for digikam bugs, see if these issues are already logged and write a good description of problem :( :( It could be faster to download source + fix it!!
Maybe.
But then making a beautifully nice and coherent fix and submitting it could take time too!

OHhhhhh noooooos! Here we go again :( ubuntu upgrade *KABOOM*

So.
Ubuntu version upgrade.
AND entries to boot new kernel written incorrectly to /boot/grub/menu.lst (because of long time previously described disk detection error) so restart after upgrade booted into old kernel.
After reboot the package manager assumed it was okay to continue the upgrade.
Suggestion to upgrade scripting people: sanity check kernel version before continuing with upgrade.

Adept seemed to be quite unstable and failed.
Ended up with a system which would boot but had no network, or graphics.
When I fixed graphics (X) we had no mouse or keyboard. AGH! B0rked.

Oh dear.

Right.

Download .iso for ubuntu 9.1 jaunty.
Make various backups.
Repartition.
...

palm sync jpilot - on ubuntu gutsy - needed udev and /etc/modules tweaks

Oh no! Palm worked seamlessly with linuxes for a while.
(and other usb sync just by setting device "usb:" as the thing to sync.)
Now ...
The bad old messy config days are back (hopefully momentarily - I'm briefly stuck on gutsy for a bit on home pc).

$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=7.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=gutsy
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 7.10"
$ uname -a
Linux xx 2.6.20-16-generic #2 SMP Tue Feb 12 05:41:34 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

To get palm sync working (with jpilot):
1. add visor to list in /etc/modules
sudo vi /etc/modules
sudo modprobe visor # to load module just for now without restarting
2. Make (or add to 10-custom.rules the below KERNEL=="ttyUSB*" entry (and rm entry from 60-symlinks.rules
BUS=="usb", SYSFS{product}=="*[vVisor]*", KERNEL=="ttyUSB[13579]", NAME="pilot",\
GROUP="dislout", MODE="0660"
2.1
sudo /etc/init.d/udev restart
3. some tests
pilot-xfer -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -l # doesn't work? works?
sudo pilot-xfer -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -l
udevinfo --query=all --name=/dev/ttyUSB0
4.And argh I ran sudo jpilot and did a sync (as root) The group setting was wrong so jpilot as normal user couldn't sync.
# fix ownerships (be careful with find ... -exec chown or chown -R in general, ...
# did I ever tell you about the time I killed a server with a recursive chown?
find /home/jamesc/.jpilot/ -user root -exec chown jamesc:jamesc {} \;
5. add group dialout for your user
sudo usermod -a -G dialout `whoami`
5.1 login again then check new group is enabled for your user
groups
6. FINALLY
jpilot
#hotsync button on palm first, then hotsync button in application



http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-418979.html j-pilot problems in Feisty
http://barnson.org/node/1556 Hotsync Palm Centro on Ubuntu Gutsy
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-hardware-18/has-anyone-synced-a-palm-tx-with-linux-397038/?highlight=pda+sync

Last day for me in CommProve today

Last day for me in CommProve (http://www.commprove.com) today.
I made apple buns.
Mike brought lemon merangue.
Pub lunch.
I cycled to and from.

New laptop installed with ubuntu.
Windows bare installed but not network/wireless capable until a bunch more drivers are sourced from somewhere on the internet.
Meh.
Ubuntu 8.10 intrepid Ibex a joy to install.
Repartitioning, dual boot, sound, graphics + openGL, network/wireless ...
Firefox bookmarks + passwords sync with Foxmarks.

Note to self:
rsync -avz --partial --progress user@server:dir ./
gtar -zcvf dotfiles.tgz .[a-zA-Z]*
wget -r -l 1 -k --save-cookies cookies.txt --load-cookies -S --keep-session-cookies --proxy=on --no-check-certificate https://server/whatever
# and rm .ssh/known_hosts as appropriate ... :-7