[arch-general] Sick of xf86-video-intel? Use the framebuffer device!

[Pierre Schmitz]

Hi all,

I am a proud user of an Intel 855GM chipset. Some time ago when the i810 
xorg dirver was replaced by the xf86-viedo-intel performance were 
decreased from version to version and in the end it was unusable due to 
too many bugs an problems.

* support for tv-out was dropped (ok, not that important for me)
* xv does not work. You either get a green or blue square or your whole X 
crashes.
* all kinds of false rendering
* extremly slow 2D performance. Even with UXA I can watch the single 
elements redrwaing if I switch tabs in konqueror for example
* too slow to watch videos on youtube or even a DVD
* overall instability
* suspend/resume is just a matter of luck

When I was just seeing garbage on my screen (=unusable) with the new 
2.6.29 kernel I started looking for alternatives:

* xorg vesa driver: faster than intel and stable; bu still performance was 
not that great (of course, there is no hw acceleration)
* vesafb+fbdev: similar performance; fast switching to vc and back is nice 
:-)

Finally I got intelfb working. Togehter with the xorg fbdev driver this 
seems to solve all my problems. It is really fast and stable. 
Suspend/Resume works fine and as a bonus I get fast vc switching (who 
needs kms for this? ;) Well, there is no support for xv, but I can watch 
DVDs with x11 output driver without issues. Using mplayer with fbdev 
output it is even possible to watch 720p videos.

The problem is: you have to compile your own kernel. The stock kernel 
provides the intelfb module but you cannot use it because vesafb is 
compiled in. I did not find a way to work around this. As soon as you 
start the kernel with a vga=XXX parameter vesafb gets loaded and other fb 
drivers cannot work.

So, here is a patch and a precompiled kernel for those who want to try it:
http://users.archlinux.de/~pierre/packages/src/intelfb.patch
http://users.archlinux.de/~pierre/packages/i686/kernel26-intelfb-2.6.29-4-
i686.pkg.tar.gz

It is also possible to build intelfb as a module; just add intel_agp and 
intelfb to your modules list in mkinitcpio.conf.

I hope this is helpful for some of you,

Pierre

-- 

Pierre Schmitz


Clemens-August-Straße 76
53115 Bonn

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