X problems with Intel driver

[GrannyGeek]

I recently acquired a Dell  Inspiron 1100 laptop (the one I had set up with VL6 Standard a year ago for my grandson; he got a new Windows 7 laptop for Christmas and Linux, alas, has lost a user). When I got the laptop a couple of weeks ago, it had a 20 gig hard drive and 256 megs of RAM. I put in a 128-gig hard drive here that I had removed from a dead laptop and I bought a gig of RAM to replace the 256 megs, leaving me with a nice machine on which I've installed VL6 Light. It's running great and should meet my laptop needs for quite a while. I do have a few problems, though.

I upgraded the kernel to 2.6.31.8 and everything is working fine except for some problems with video. The computer has a chip for Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 03). I start in text mode and things generally work fine.  However, when I exit X and return to text mode I usually lose seeing anything on the screen, which is just black. Sometimes the computer is hung; other times it will receive commands but I can't see anything on screen. If I open a text terminal under X everything is okay. It's just when I exit from X that the black screen/no text problem happens. So if I exit IceWM and choose to shut down, I don't see anything on screen from that point, although the computer shuts down properly.

This is the driver section in xorg.conf:
Identifier  "Card0"
Driver      "intel"
VendorName  "Intel Corporation"
BoardName   "82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device"
BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"

Is there a driver that would be better suited than the plain intel driver? I installed the latest kernel available in the VL repo because I may add USB wireless and I want the improved support built into later kernels.
--GrannyGeek

[retired1af]

Intel created a Linux driver specifically for that series of chip sets. You can find the documentation and drivers (you'll need to compile into the kernel) here: http://intellinuxgraphics.org/documentation.html

[GrannyGeek]

Thanks for this information. I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner. Somehow I missed your message until today.

Compiling into the kernel sounds scary to me. I'll probably need some guidance if I decide to do it. The intel driver I'm using now is doing better than it was when I posted my message, but occasionally I do get the black screen upon exiting X or restarting X. I can live with it at its present level. If it stops behaving ok, I'll think seriously about compiling the Intel drivers in the link into the kernel.
--GrannyGeek

[Deach]

I'm fighting that same laptop Granny....trying to get VL light on it maybe now, at least it looked ok on the live CD, we'll see what the install does.  I to am scared of this "into the kernel" thing....

 EDIT....OK Granny May I ask how did you get it going.  I can not get this 1100 to have video. 

[GrannyGeek]

I'm fighting that same laptop Granny....trying to get VL light on it maybe now, at least it looked ok on the live CD, we'll see what the install does.  I to am scared of this "into the kernel" thing....

 EDIT....OK Granny May I ask how did you get it going.  I can not get this 1100 to have video.

I wish I could tell you, but I don't remember having a problem getting video  going on this Inspiron 1100. I tend to solve problems by rote and can never remember exactly what I did that worked, but I'm sure I'd remember if I had a battle to the death. I think that when I installed VL6 Light VASM set up the video for the xorg intel driver.

My suggestion would be to start in text mode and run VASM when you log in. Or run vxconf as root. You could try the vesa driver, which often works when others don't. My machine works best with the driver called intel.

You may need to reboot several times. I've had situations where the screen went black as soon as I did startx. If it does that, it's not going to work the second time. I have to  turn off the computer and restart. Maybe on the fourth try it'll work fine. I have no idea why it does this sometimes.
--GrannyGeek

[Deach]

Ok, I'll give it all a shot.  Thanks.  I'm honestly used to installing VL and it "just working" perhaps a bit spoiled.  Again, Thanks!

EDIT:   OK still fighting this thing...GRRR anyway I'm gonna try to reinstall again, something didn't take right from the light install.  and try all of the suggestions above.  I know Puppy only found the 640x480 one with the "intel driver" so........Anyway I've never had this much trouble getting video to work on any of my installs....it was a freebie though so worth the work.