# Intel 845G chipset

## carlivar

I thought I'd just post all of the info I've found regarding the Intel 845G chipset and Gentoo, since it has required a lot of research.  In my case it is in my new Dell GX260 desktop at work.

IDE:

The 1.4-rc1 boot CD would not allow me to turn on DMA for the hard drive.  Seems the 2.4.19 kernel doesn't support the 845G chipset very well.

Also, I was unable to compile the gentoo-sources-2.4.19-r9 kernel.  It aborted with errors during the i810 portion.

Solution:  run vanilla 2.4.20-pre10 kernel, which has support for 845G.

Video:

The releases of xfree up to this point do not have support for the 845G video.  Support has been added, but is only in cvs and the rather "unofficial" 4.2.99 version of xfree86.

Solution:  emerge xfree-4.2.99 -- to do this you must:

Change the x11-base/xfree line in /etc/make.profile/packages to:

>=x11-base/xfree-4.2.99

Also comment out the xfree-4.2.99 line in /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask.

Finally, the ebuild for xfree-4.2.99 is intentionally broken.  Comment out the pkg_setup lines that put out the warning.  This is in /usr/portage/x11-base/xfree/xfree-4.2.99.ebuild.

xfree 4.2.99 should then install.  It is compiling for me right now.  I hope it works.

Alternative to xfree 4.2.99:  run the "vesa" driver in X.  This has some fairly major limitations I believe, but I think it should work with the right tweaks.

Sound:

Haven't tested yet, but should hopefully be standard AC97.

I will keep posting here if I find out anything else interesting/broken.

Carl

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## carlivar

Bummer.  xfree 4.2.99 barfed compiling.  Right at the end I got some sort of nasty gcc error.  Not sure now if 4.2.99 has the right video support anyway.  Time to try xfree from CVS.  This should be interesting.

Carl

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## Lovechild

Here some thing to help with your fun new project.

http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=245

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## carlivar

That link seems to be outdated or incorrect.

Carl

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## Lovechild

Nah, it seems linuxandmain are having trouble with their database or something. Anyways it was a link I found on Linuxtoday a few days ago detailing XFree86 CVS compilation for the first timer.

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## carlivar

That is a nice article.  Thanks!

What I've done now is modify the 4.2.99 ebuild and make my own "4.2.999" ebuild with the latest CVS version of X.  I figure this way portage will be happy that I "officially" installed it.  If it works.

I'm worried my .ebuild and such will be deleted next time I do an emerge sync.  Anyone know if there's a way to tell emerge that a particular ebuild is local and not to mess with it?

Or alternatively, can I install X myself outside of portage and then somehow force portage to think X is installed?

Carl

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## carlivar

Ah, found the answer to my second option.  'emerge inject'.  Cool.

Carl

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## carlivar

Whoo hoo!  I now have X working.  The X installation from CVS went fine.  Here are some things I had to do:

-Install the png library before compiling X.

-Add /usr/X11R6/lib to /etc/env.d/00basic and then run 'env-update'

-run 'emerge inject x11-base/xfree-4.2.99' so that portage realizes X is installed.

That's it!  Fluxbox is looking pretty good, although my mouse pointer is red.

'glxinfo' is saying "Direct rendering: no" so I still want to try and get that working, but otherwise I'm pretty happy.

Carl

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## carlivar

Okay I got direct rendering working too.  I had to add a "VideoRam 32768" line in my XF86Config file.  This is a known bug apparently with the 845G support.  Now 'glxinfo' reports direct rendering is working.

Problem now is that 'glxgears' seems to run momentarily and then freeze up my machine.  Not a big deal though - might just be a result of running a CVS version of xfree86.

Oh and I also have two mouse cursors.  One is an interesting semi-transparent red pointer (not the usual little black pointer).  That one works fine.  There's also an "X" cursor, like the default one that shows up when X is first loading.  It stays there and doesn't move.  Minor, but annoying.

845G chipset is not for the faint of heart.

Carl

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