28 Mar
2003
28 Mar
'03
8:14 p.m.
Hi all,
I saw a couple posts on this matter on other lists namely from people
who are trying to make multimedia Linux boxes using CCRMA packages and
RH 8.0.
The issue at hand is that many of the newer machines with cheapo
embedded video cards use Intel 845G chipset which is unsupported by RH
8.0's XFree 4.2. However, XFree 4.3 does support it and so the following
needs to be done (assumption is that you have a reasonably fast internet
connection, otherwise this might prove to be pain -- total d/l amount is
approx. 70MB):
1) Install RH 8.0 in command-line mode (graphics mode will most likely
fail -- it did on mine, although it might have been partially due to use
of an outdated flatscreen monitor that did not allow even the
framebuffer mode)
2) Skip XFree config (if you really feel compelled to configure it, do
NOT test it, it WILL fail)
3) Upon reboot, using Internet connection, connect to the following ftp
in order to retrieve XFree 4.3 version of the x server for the RH 8.0
(you might try the Rawhide mirrors as well but I am not sure whether
those will work):
ftp://people.redhat.com/mharris/testing/unstable/XFree86
(thanks to Mike Harris from Redhat for making them)
4) Install XFree packages by doing:
rpm -Uvh *.rpm --nodeps --force (don't worry it should be ok, at least
it was on mine :-)
5) configure up2date
6) run:
up2date glibc
(you need 2.3.2 for Xfree 4.3, and the one that comes with RH is
2.2.something)
7) Upon finishing installation, run:
redhat-config-xfree86 -o /etc/X11/XF86Config
(you might need to tinker with the config file, depending on your
monitor and other hw)
8) Try starting x server with:
startx
9) Now, you should be up and running, but you still need to enable
acceleration (since otherwise anything with OpenGL will be simply
impossible to use). You need to get the new version of DRI (which
reports errors since the kernel module i830.o is ver.1.2 not 1.3 as
required by Xfree4.3). So go download new DRI package for 4.3 from here:
http://www.xfree86.org/~alanh/linux-drm-4.3.0-kernelsource.tar.gz
(big thanks to Leif Delgass for pointing this out)
10) untar the package and make the new module by doing:
make -f Makefile.linux
11) install the i830.o file by copying it to the
/lib/modules/<kernel-version>/kernel/drivers/char/drm/
(you might wanna backup the old module to something like old-i830.o just
in case something screws up)
12) Now reboot the machine and check the /var/log/XFree86.0.log for any
DRI errors. You might also wanna run the glxgears or something similar
to see if everything is ok. Don't expect much of a fps increase, though
(I had 336 fps on the studio's 2.4GHz P4 machine, while with DRI it went
up to only 400+ fps). What you will, however, see is the smoother moving
the OpenGL window around the desktop and generally better system
responsiveness.
Now I can even play the Tuxracer at a reasonable framerate. Yay! That's
it. Hope someone finds this helpful. Cheers!
Ivica Ico Bukvic
http://meowing.ccm.uc.edu/~ico