Years Later, Intel Poulsbo Remains A Bloody Mess

[speculatrix]

I have the split screen problem on my Fujitsu U2010 (aka U820), and found that restarting X fixed it.
yeah, it's very disappointing

Tungsten graphics who wrote the original driver for Intel have been owned by VMWare since 2008. If only vmware cared about opensource they might have been persuaded to open source the driver. OTOH, there's a good chance Tungsten signed an NDA over the poulsbo graphics and can't do anything about it either.

sigh.

[Kano]

What didnt you get with my statement? I do NOT pay for it. Not even a cent.

[patrik]

If somebody does not need his gma 500 device anymore let me know, I only had a few h to test a netbook with that chip at last linuxtag but that was not enough to try emgd driver. I only tested a few kernel options to get the backlight working, but then the system got unstable. I did not use ubuntu but kanotix of course. The oss driver is basically useless when you want to play a movie. the software scaling is so slow that you can forget it. I will definitely NOT buy gma 500/600 hardware but would like to test it.

You can probably find something second-hand. That way you don't support any of the involved companies but you get access to the hardware. I found an Asus 1201ha pretty cheap. Had to replace the LCD but still got away with paying less than for a new unit.

[archibald]

On topic: I bought a Dell Mini 12 - I made the assumption that since it was Intel graphics hardware, Linux support would be great. I was angry with Dell and pissed off with Intel as I felt misled - the branding that I saw did not mark it out as being any different from their other graphics chips. In the end I just chalked it up to experience and eked out three simple rules:

1) Product branding and names cannot be entirely relied upon for information.
2) When buying hardware for open source operating systems, check chipsets.
3) Companies can do good things in bad ways (supporting linux: hurrah! with poorly-supported hardware: boo!)

Remembering these should prevent unpleasant surprises when buying hardware.

Offish-topic: The other day it was driven home to me that I'm a geek when I was watching The Big Bang Theory, and Sheldon was talking about how old-school games run on the "most powerful graphics chip: imagination", and I though "Pfft, call themselves a geek show? Any geek knows that AMD blow them out of the water!".

About a week later when I mentioned this to somebody else, their groaning facepalm gave me an epiphany :-)

[Kano]

If somebody does not need his gma 500 device anymore let me know, I only had a few h to test a netbook with that chip at last linuxtag but that was not enough to try emgd driver. I only tested a few kernel options to get the backlight working, but then the system got unstable. I did not use ubuntu but kanotix of course. The oss driver is basically useless when you want to play a movie. the software scaling is so slow that you can forget it. I will definitely NOT buy gma 500/600 hardware but would like to test it.

[grege]

Not as simple as implied

@Gusar

I did research before buying my Dell Mini 12. There was a driver available. Dell supplied a version with Ubuntu installed. Everything seemed good, all the components worked.

Then the horror revealed itself over time. The driver was a binary blob, frozen in time. Slowly it became apparent that the driver would not work with later versions of xorg or newer kernels. No research gave that result when it was first released. No one said "here is the driver, but don't expect it to ever be updated".

The choices were simple. Stay frozen with Ubuntu 8.04 (roughly), put Windows on it and sell it or seek another solution.

The other solution was a project that has a PPA - The GMA500 Team. My netbook has always run Ubuntu by running their version of the EMGD driver. It has worked well enough, but it is not a simple process to do each update. The PPA only supports Ubuntu, tough if you want to use a different distro. There were efforts to port their work to other distros like Arch, but the only real solution was to run Ubuntu. And Xubuntu was always the best option for my Dell.

Luckily my Dell has reached the end of it's useful life and I will never buy anything with a PowerVR chipset again. I managed to keep it going all these years, but for now and until forever the rule is simple - It either has an open source driver or it does not. If the answer is no then no sale.

[0xBADCODE]

Turn on your imagination! Imagine it works!

Turn on your imagination! Imagine it works properly. That's probably what they meant with their company name

[droidhacker]

You assumed. That's was your problem. Keyword your. There may have been no sticker saying PowerVR, but I do recall seeing at the store a few netbooks clearly labeled as having US15W, which you could've informed yourself about what that means when it comes to Linux.

You know the old saying, buyer beware. That's especially when you intend to run Linux. You can now post another rage-filled post, it won't change the fact that you assumed instead of properly informing yourself.

Don't you DARE defend what amounts to a CRIMINAL abuse of trust.

As I've mentioned, Intel will NEVER get another cent out of me. So they are certainly paying for this failure.

And again, very clearly, it was MARKETED AS INTEL. This was quite a blatant LIE that was WITHIN THEIR control.

"US15W" is meaningless. And you will note that RETROSPECT is different than being there AT THE TIME. You can look NOW and see what things actually are, because they've been documented. When the hardware was new, there was no reference to look into. The ONLY information there was to go on was the name INTEL, which was previously synonymous with OPEN SOURCE.

I dare you to go looking for this magic reference you refer to, dated no later than april 2008.

[Gusar]

You assumed. That's was your problem. Keyword your. There may have been no sticker saying PowerVR, but I do recall seeing at the store a few netbooks clearly labeled as having US15W, which you could've informed yourself about what that means when it comes to Linux.

You know the old saying, buyer beware. That's especially when you intend to run Linux. You can now post another rage-filled post, it won't change the fact that you assumed instead of properly informing yourself.

[droidhacker]

I know, you just want something to rage at because you couldn't possibly be responsible for your terrible hardware purchase decision. If you want something to take out your frustration on, try a mirror...

Oh go pull your head out of your ass.
The purchase decision was based on the device's overall capabilities, and the fact that it said INTEL, which EVERYONE at that time assumed (wrongly, as it turned out) meant that the thing would be properly supported by open source drivers. INTEL FUCKED EVERYONE OVER with ***THEIR*** decision to ship PVR crap.

Do you not notice how computers you buy in the store have labeles on the boxes and stickers below the keyboards identifying WHO MADE various critical components? A sticker that says AMD, a sticker that says NVIDIA, a sticker that says INTEL. NO STICKER SAID POWERVR!!!!

Intel boxed up this SHIT as their own and fucked everone over.

AT LEAST IF IT SAID POWERVR, I WOULD HAVE ANTICIPATED DRIVER PROBLEMS AND ASSESSED ACCORDINGLY.

The reason why this is NOT my fault, is because Intel had NEVER done this previously. Previously ALL graphics parts were supported by their own open source driver.