Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900

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Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900

This is an Intel video adapter

Features

Linux X.Org driver

This chip is supported by the 'i810' driver as part of the X.Org distribution

For DRI-Support, you may have to install the latest Drivers from DRI Snapshot you need following files:
common-<CurrentVersion>-linux.i386.tar.bz2
i915-<CurrentVersion>-linux.tar.bz2
Extract both in the same Directory and run install.sh
After that restart your X-Server and enjoy OpenGL-Support ;-)

At least on a T43, you also want to add acpi_sleep=s3_bios to the kernel command line (edit your LILO or GRUB configuration file to do that), in order to make sure that Xorg continues to work after a suspend/resume cycle.

For those who is using Gentoo with xorg-x11-6.8.2 and can't get i810 driver working: you can emerge xorg-x11-6.9.0 (unmask it first) and everything will work out of the box (tested with kernel 2.6.15-gentoo-r1).

Warning: Debian users, do not install the DRI Snapshot, it will overwrite several files in several packages and cause you all manner of grief. (not if you build whole Xorg release, for example 6.9.0 which includes DRI and then install it to '/usr/local' - which is the default location if you install with 'make install') If you're using Stable with xorg from sarge-backports (at backports.org), you can install all the required files from that repository, Etch (Testing/Unstable) users can install from the Testing/Unstable repositories at debian.org

It is wise to choose relatively fresh kernel version (2.6.17.13 works for sure). It will contain driver module i915. For DRI to work there should be 4 kernel modules: agpgart, intel_agp, drm and i915. There also must be fresh xorg graphic driver (i810). Xorg 6.9.0 is fresh enough (in older version, namely XFree 4.3 everything compiles with no problems, but after starting X enviroment screen gets black although you can hear sounds). While building Xorg don't 'make install', use checkinstall instead: 'checkinstall --showinstall=yes -D "make install"'. Detailed instructions for setting up and troubleshooting DRI can be found at: http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/DriTroubleshooting and http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/DRIuserguide.html. Remember to set bus mastering. To check whether DRI is running use 'glxinfo'.

Linux Intel driver

You can find Linux drivers for this card on Intel's site. The site offers much information about how to install this card on many distributions, mainly Red Hat and SuSe. The "Intel" driver above is just a snapshot of the Xorg/XFree86 driver.

The display now (Fedora Core 5 - xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.0.1-9.fc5.1.1) works perfectly using X.Org driver. All you need to do is change xorg.conf frequencies in the monitor section like this:

       HorizSync    31.5-90
       VertRefresh  50-90

ThinkPad LCD

Display on the internal LCD works as long as you set the monitor settings correct.

External VGA port

Works well in clone mode at least. Dualhead is supported.

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

       Section "Device"
           Identifier      "Intel Corporation Intel Default Card"
           Driver          "i810"
           BusID           "PCI:0:2:0"
           Option          "MonitorLayout" "CRT,LFP"
           Option          "Clone" "true"
       EndSection

Now you can enable|disable vga out with i810switch crt on|off

SVideo port

See above, but use

       Option          "MonitorLayout" "TV,LFP"

Now you can turn on/off the TV-Out by executing the commands

# echo "dvi_enable" > /proc/acpi/ibm/video

or

# echo "dvi_disable" > /proc/acpi/ibm/video

Or toggle between them with

# echo "video_switch" > /proc/acpi/ibm/video

This is known to work on a T43.

Hint:
Of course you can also use all 3, that makes "TV,LFP,CRT" (in that order).

DVI port

DVI could theoretically be supported if a TMDS transmitter where hooked up to one of the pipes, which is NOT the case on any ThinkPad.

Linux kernel Framebuffer driver

This chip will work with either the 'vesa' or 'intelfb' driver as part of any recent 2.4 or 2.6 kernel.

ThinkPads this chip may be found in