So, is there a mainline kernel version yet which includes enabled/working support for this chipset? ie, Will this make it into Fedora 16, or do I need to wait for 17 to try installing on my netbook?
Phoronix: The Intel Poulsbo Open Driver TODO/Support List
For those wondering what functionality is supported by Intel's open-source GMA500/GMA600 "Poulsbo" DRM driver, here's a list of what works and also what doesn't function...
http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTAxOTU
So, is there a mainline kernel version yet which includes enabled/working support for this chipset? ie, Will this make it into Fedora 16, or do I need to wait for 17 to try installing on my netbook?
I just tried installing fedora 16 lxde. The live disk didn't make it into desktop. Then I tried OpenSUSE lxde and it worked out of the box with psb_gfx module. Fedora 16 should work out of the box too, I didn't look closer into why it didn't. I think it' should work with all >2.39 kernels.
Acer GMA 500 netbook. Backlight control doesn't seem to work though.
I wish you good luck, since it's the thing that you need with GMA 500.
Heh, yeah, I bought a sweet (and very expensive) Toughbook back in 2008, which ended up spending it's useful life sitting in a box because I never had time to sort all this crap out ( http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=201018 ).
These days, my smartphone does everything I wanted from that hardware, so I don't even really care at this point. I'm hoping to at least bring it back to life and maybe someday use the thing as a robot controller or something.
There is a great bunch of Ubuntu devs who continually shoe horn the EMGD driver into each new version. I have a Dell Mini 12 running Xubuntu Oneiric. They do this by setting up a PPA that downgrades xorg and adds EMGD so that you end up with a fully functional system - to a point. I have xv and 3d acceleration and I have suspend and resume. The keyboard keys are functional and I can adjust screen brightness. Gnome-Shell will not work, but Xfce on such a low specced machine works very well - even the Xfce built in composting effects. I had to use a text based installer to get the basic system installed then work on the video.
For anyone who wants to actually make a working system look here....
https://launchpad.net/~gma500/+archi...filter=oneiric
This work is also ported to Arch. For other distros - bad luck. It might be possible to use the PPA for a Debian Wheezy install but you would need to be dedicated.
Last edited by grege; 11-24-2011 at 05:29 PM.
Backlight and suspend/resume and native resolution... That would be incredibly awesome. I wonder what configuration the post meant... Is there a configuration file, or does that mean recompiling your own kernel?
I believe that "if you configure it" means configuring and then compiling your own kernel.
I have written some instructions on the Fedora Project wiki for building a kernel with this driver in Fedora 16.
Instructions here, no kernel compiling necessary.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1792777
The EMGD aproach is way better for now, but the psb-glx driver is available if all you want is the absolute basic setup.
Once it is in the mainline kernel and the distros catch up the psb-glx driver should just work out of the box.