Intelfb, Q965 etc etc

[John Summerfield <reluctanthacker@js.id.au>]

I have an HP DC7700 on which I wish to run SL5, a RHEL clone and xen. I
also wish to have framebuffer support whilst XEN is running.

I can do that with an IBM Thinkcentre with this video:
21:16 [summer@numbat ~]$ lspci -v -s 00:02.0
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82865G Integrated
Graphics Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
         Subsystem: IBM Unknown device 0285
         Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
         Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
         Memory at e8000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
         I/O ports at 1800 [size=8]
         Capabilities: <access denied>

21:17 [summer@numbat ~]$

I simply modprobe intelfb and all works well, despite nasturtiums cast
on this list.

I've noticed that intelfb does not support the graphics on my HP box:
[summer@bobtail ~]$ lspci -v -s 00:02.0
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82Q963/Q965
Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
         Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 2801
         Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21
         Memory at f0400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
         Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
         I/O ports at 1100 [size=8]
         Capabilities: <access denied>

[summer@bobtail ~]$

I don't know much at all about these things, but it seemed a fair bet
that a '945G driver might work, so I did some hacking on intelfb and
I've booted.

The good news is that "modprobe intelfb" doesn't hang the system; the
screen goes powersaving, which given the gas supply here (Thankyou
Apache), is probably a good thing.

fbset finds a framebuffer driver and all seems well, better than it
should be:-) Except for the blank screen.

Time to call for help I think. But first:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=4815EEB4.2060509%40frugalware.org&forum_name=linux-fbdev-devel 


says that intelfb isn't really being maintained, and that clever souls
are working on a replacement.

Now, that _was_ about six weeks ago.

vesafb (which I discovered cannot be compiled as a module) drives it
fine with standard (not XEN) kernels.

I have a similar system running F9 and it's fine _but_ it's so long
since I had a working kernel-xen in Fedora that I don't recall whether I
had XEN and framebuffer.

Since I wish to run SL5, I really should stay with 2.6.18 kernels.

Before I post the copious kernel messages I have and the patch for
others' perusal, what does the list recommend?





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