Hrev 50766: Live-CD intel.extreme graphics driver no longer recognized i965GM

It seems to me that the intel graphics driver has changed. Booting hrev50766 live-CD on my notebook brings only the VESA driver with a resolution of XGA (1024x768) not using the whole screen (There are black bars on the left and the right). hrev49237 starts correct with the intel.extreme driver and the correct resolution of 1280x800 so do the alpha of Haiku.

I knew the development of the intel driver is a work in progress but IMHO supporting new hardware should not lost older hardware.

Workaround for me is using hrev49237 and updating with pkgman update, hoping it does not change my drivers.

Nevertheless Haiku is for me the real alternative to the established OSes, running fast on older hardware and with advanced features and concepts i see nowhere else.

Joerg

Joerg, updating Haiku will update the drivers too, so it isn’t the ideal solution for you.
What you can Do is preserving the old Intel_extreme driver Files in non-packaged folder, so you can update, but Haiku will continue to use the old driver instead of the half-baked new one. Let us know if you need more help to accomplish it.

Can you adjust the resolution in the screen preferences? That may be enough to get it full screen again.

It will be used only the VESA driver and the highest resolution for my notebook therfore is 1024x768. 1280x800 is not VESA-supported.

Miglas thank for the tip and warning. I have found two files searching for intel_ex*
intel_extreme and intel_extreme_accelerant. Are they needed both and were to save them - directly in the non-packaged folder or according to the boot filesystem in home/config/add-ons/kernel/bin and home/config/add-ons/accelerants

If VESA is used, it would mean that the intel driver is ignoring your video card for some reason. I would recommend giving us a syslog and the output of the “listdev” command, maybe we can just add the missing PCI IDs to the driver to get it running again.

You need to put the two files in the non-packaged equivalent of their original directories, /system/non-packaged/add-ons/kernel/bin and /system/non-packaged/add-ons/accelerants respectively (the first is the kernel side driver, which we keep as small as possible, and the second is the userland side, which run in the accelerant thread).

Burning the anyboot image with Linux gives you a live-CD labeled “bootimg” and three files on it. The readme.html only contains the not very useful content:
“Haiku is an open-source operating system currently in development
designed from the ground up for desktop computing. Inspired by the BeOS,
Haiku aims to provide users of all levels with a personal computing
experience that is simple yet powerful, and free of any unnecessary
complexities.”

and a link to the Haiku Website. Nothing about the CD Layout and that was confusing me as newbee. Sorry.

I have saved the needed drivers as you suggested and it works for me again. I bother to find out when the changes took place in the hrevs no longer supporting my notebook graphic card: The last working one was hrev50483, starting with 50533 i got a blank screen by booting with the live-CD. As of the time i tested that latest hrev 70796 with the same result.

I’ve made txt files for the output of listdev, listimage and a copy of the syslog of all three tested hrevs:
50483 latest working,
50533 something must have changed,
50796 latest nightly as of the time of my tests.

One thing i found out: starting with 50533 and doing a “grep intel” on the syslog, it brings up:

KERN: read_pos(pos:810320127918080, len:4096) failed with: 0xffffffff
KERN: devfs: “intel_810” api_version missing
KERN: i810: init_hardware() - no supported devices

Maybe that has do with my “problem”?
Is it worth and important enough to open a ticket or should i post the zip-file with the txt-files here in the forum?

Are you sure you mande a “grep intel”? Because the last line here has no “intel” in it.
intel_810 is a driver for very old i810 chipsets (from 2000 and earlier), this driver didn’t change for a long time.

You should instead grep for intel_extreme, which will list the intel_extreme driver logs, I think this is the driver you are using?

A “listdev” of your device would be useful, so we know exactly which video chip it is.

And yes, any regression in hardware support is worth a bug report.