Nvidia vs ATI

[Stan Goodman]

Since there is no available driver for the Intel HD Integrated Graphics
card on the Intel MB I bought last week, I've inquired about supported
PCI Express cards that I could install instead. My usual merchant
carries cards of Ndivia and ATI, and has in stock ATI HD3650.

A web search assures me that this card belongs to the Redeon series;
<man ati> says that Radeon is supported, so I assume that this one is.

He also has similar Nvidia cards. I am shying away from Nvidia because I
have seen over the years so many discussions about difficulties, perhaps
quirks in the available drivers, that make them seem like avoidable
trouble. And yet I know that many buy and use them, so I am perhaps
exaggerating the risk. I'd be happy to read any comment anyone has to
offer about this.

[Michael Powell]

Post by Stan Goodman
Since there is no available driver for the Intel HD Integrated Graphics
card on the Intel MB I bought last week, I've inquired about supported
PCI Express cards that I could install instead. My usual merchant
carries cards of Ndivia and ATI, and has in stock ATI HD3650.

This is actually a fairly old card, if I'm not mistaken. Intel is working on
ramping up their Linux support for your equipment. A great deal of it is
already present in Git source code repositories for people who want to
custom build the bleeding edge code. This support is right around the corner
and probably will be beginning to get included in packaged distros soon.
This is 'right around the corner', so to speak, and work is already under
way for Ivy Bridge as well.

Post by Stan Goodman
A web search assures me that this card belongs to the Redeon series;
<man ati> says that Radeon is supported, so I assume that this one is.

Sometime back (before I bought Nvidia GTS-450) I was using onboard HD3300
series IGP and later added a 3450. I had originally been using the radeonhd
driver fairly successfully, but I had read the Catalyst (fglrx) drivers had
been improving, so I gave them a go.

I noticed the packaged binaries available from repos were outdated so I went
ahead and downloaded the latest from AMD/ATI web site. Somewhere around 6-9
months ago AMD/ATI began to make a push to get their Linux drivers to be a
little more equal to the Windows ones. Starting about 10.3, or so, they were
getting better almost by the month. They still hadn't caught NVidia yet, but
the knew they were behind and you could see they were really trying.

Post by Stan Goodman
He also has similar Nvidia cards. I am shying away from Nvidia because I
have seen over the years so many discussions about difficulties, perhaps
quirks in the available drivers, that make them seem like avoidable
trouble. And yet I know that many buy and use them, so I am perhaps
exaggerating the risk. I'd be happy to read any comment anyone has to
offer about this.

I am using a GTS 450 Nvidia card today. As much as the Catalyst (fglrx)
stuff was steadily improving I almost wish I had stayed with AMD/ATI. The
problem I had was that even though they got dual monitor support going
again, in order to use it they used Xinerama (which is slow). When support
for dual monitors was running 3D acceleration was automatically turned off.
So you couldn't have 2 monitors _and_ 3D accel at the same time. Switched to
the Nvidia about 4 months ago so I do not know if maybe this situation has
changed (wrt fglrx) since then.

I had used Nvidia 'Twinview' previously on an older machine with an AGP GT
6600 based video card and knew that it worked. With 'Twinview' (Nvidia
Xinerama replacement) you don't lose 3D acceleration. Also the libvdpau
support works fairly well and the AMD/ATI equivalent isn't quite "there"
yet. The latest recent release of the Adobe Flash player for 64 bit even has
support for the Nvidia libvdpau. IIRC the latest Nvidia cards (like mine and
newer) also go all the way to OpenGL 4.x if used with the drivers downloaded
from Nvidia web site and manually installed (which is what I do).

Now for the bad news: I have been having a steady problem with NVidia
drivers and the desktop effects under KDE 4.6.x. The last driver that works
entirely correct is 260.19.44 and I had to patch a file in order to use it
with kernel 2.6.39-2-desktop. It will not build on any newer kernels. All
the newer Nvidia releases since then build and install correctly on any
newer kernel but the Kwin desktop effects problem still is present. Even if
I turn off desktop effects (better) I can still get some minor glitches in
some window decorations. So I have been using the 2.6.39-2-desktop kernel
and stayed with the 260.19.44 Nvidia drivers to keep everything "right".

For me the greatest advantage Nvidia has is I can run dual monitors _and_
have 3D acceleration.

A new 275.19 dropped yesterday, and while I've already downloaded I haven't
tried installing it yet. Just about to try that now....

-Mike

[Sebastian Siebert]

Post by Stan Goodman
Since there is no available driver for the Intel HD Integrated Graphics
card on the Intel MB I bought last week, I've inquired about supported
PCI Express cards that I could install instead. My usual merchant
carries cards of Ndivia and ATI, and has in stock ATI HD3650.
A web search assures me that this card belongs to the Redeon series;
<man ati> says that Radeon is supported, so I assume that this one is.
He also has similar Nvidia cards. I am shying away from Nvidia because I
have seen over the years so many discussions about difficulties, perhaps
quirks in the available drivers, that make them seem like avoidable
trouble. And yet I know that many buy and use them, so I am perhaps
exaggerating the risk. I'd be happy to read any comment anyone has to
offer about this.

Hi Stan,

I have experienced the same story with NVIDIA in the past (ago 3-4
years). This was the reason that I switched to AMD graphics card. I have
not regretted it.

I have a ATI Radeon 3870 in my computer. It works with the radeon driver
(depended of used kernel version, but sometimes not really good) or the
proprietary ATI Catalyst Display Driver from AMD (That is currently a
better choice).

There is also one other reason to buy an AMD graphics card. ;-) I am the
openSUSE Packaging Script Maintainer for ATI Catalyst and a intensive
beta tester of ATI Catalyst Driver for next versions since November 2010
and have a direct contact with AMD. I like to mediate between openSUSE
user and AMD, if any problems arise with the driver. I help the user in
setting up the graphics card, but often is not necessary. It is easy to
install on openSUSE.

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:ATI_drivers

Everyone gets the graphics card, which he deserves. ;-)

[Felix Miata]

Post by Stan Goodman
Since there is no available driver for the Intel HD Integrated Graphics
card on the Intel MB I bought last week, I've inquired about supported
PCI Express cards that I could install instead. My usual merchant
carries cards of Ndivia and ATI, and has in stock ATI HD3650.
A web search assures me that this card belongs to the Redeon series;
<man ati> says that Radeon is supported, so I assume that this one is.
He also has similar Nvidia cards. I am shying away from Nvidia because I
have seen over the years so many discussions about difficulties, perhaps
quirks in the available drivers, that make them seem like avoidable
trouble. And yet I know that many buy and use them, so I am perhaps
exaggerating the risk. I'd be happy to read any comment anyone has to
offer about this.

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2011-07/msg00172.html is the last thread
on this subject in this forum, less than two weeks ago.

If you find spending money because your Intel hardware is too new for full
support annoying: neither, at least until you've tried Tumbleweed, and
failing that as a solution, thought about accepting 1024x768 for a few weeks
or months until full Sandy Bridge support shows up in 11.4+Tumbleweed.

If games and/or maximum 3D performance matter to you: NV

If you find annoying the need to install proprietary drivers to get maximum
performance: ATI

I stay away from games and infrequently fuss over lack of performance, so
stick mostly to Intel, ATI, & even MGA, and always to FOSS drivers. I get
frustrated attempting to use NV, as evidenced just last night:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=706305

More NV frustration sitting in my SUSE mailboxes:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=706024#c3
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2011-07/msg00259.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-xorg/2011-07/msg00000.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2010-10/msg00241.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2011-03/msg00705.html
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=675793#c8
Multiple private threads between myself and Bob S, who frequently comes here
for openSUSE on NV help.
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Felix Miata]

Post by Stan Goodman
Since there is no available driver for the Intel HD Integrated Graphics
card on the Intel MB I bought last week...

I wouldn't give up on Sandy Bridge yet. IIRC, another frequent participant
here, Randall R Schulz, came here for Sandy Bridge help with 11.4 not too
long ago, and I'll bet he got if working. Maybe a list mail archive search
will produce hits you can use to that end.

Saving
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo
to /etc/zypp/repos.d/ will provide zypper and YaST access to install newer
Xorg, including the latest Intel driver. I have guess that's all you really
need, but maybe for it to work you'd need a newer kernel as well.

Saving either of:
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable/standard/Kernel:stable.repo
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Tumbleweed/standard/openSUSE:Tumbleweed.repo

to /etc/zypp/repos.d/ will provide zypper and YaST access to install 2.6.39
kernels, which surely by now have full Sandy Bridge support. I suggest you
test with Xorg first, and if that's not enough, go for the stable kernel, and
then if it isn't enough, switch from stable to Tumbleweed, which will
_convert_ your 11.4 to "Tumbleweed". If you go either kernel route, be sure
to goto /etc/zypp/zypp.conf and remove "#" from the line including
"multiversion = provides:multiversion(kernel)". That way your old kernel(s)
will remain installed as fallback in case you have a problem with newer. Most
of my 11.4 systems run a 2.6.39 kernel from one of these two "kernel" repos.

FWIW in case dead dinosaur consumption matters to you, separate graphic cards
normally do consume more power than onboard chips. AIUI, one of the
advantages of Sandy Bridge is having the GPU on the CPU die, saving even more
power.
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Michael Powell

Post by Stan Goodman
Since there is no available driver for the Intel HD Integrated Graphics
card on the Intel MB I bought last week, I've inquired about supported
PCI Express cards that I could install instead. My usual merchant
carries cards of Ndivia and ATI, and has in stock ATI HD3650.

This is actually a fairly old card, if I'm not mistaken. Intel is working on
ramping up their Linux support for your equipment. A great deal of it is
already present in Git source code repositories for people who want to
custom build the bleeding edge code. This support is right around the corner
and probably will be beginning to get included in packaged distros soon.
This is 'right around the corner', so to speak, and work is already under
way for Ivy Bridge as well.

Since I wrote, I have found a web page that seems to offer a feasible
path to installation of the ATI card, and is even SUSE oriented
(http://forums.opensuse.org/forums/english/get-technical-help-here/64-bit/391836-drivers-ati-radeon-hd3650-suse-11-00-64-bit.html);
the light dawns near the bottom. So if I go that way, installation seems
less off-putting. After I discovered that the HD3650, although a Radeon,
is not the Radeon that the <man ati> page means when it says Radeon is
supported, things had begun to seem bleak.

But if you say that Intel support for their chip is "right around the
corner", that opens up a more appealing possibility. Since you seem to
know the neighborhood and its corners, and I don't, can you give us a
clue of what "right around" means? And how confident your are about your
estimate?

The driver that the system has chosen as its best shot is not impossible
to work with, for simple purposes anyway. I can view film clips on the
websites I use for news, and the Web in general is not suffering. The
difficulty so far is pop-up menus that have an artifact that makes them
hard or impossible to read (thin white bars, horizontal and vertical)
obscuring the text of the menu; that has got to go. But I can tolerate
it for a time, if I have some notion of how much time is involved.

Post by Michael Powell

Post by Stan Goodman
A web search assures me that this card belongs to the Redeon series;
<man ati> says that Radeon is supported, so I assume that this one is.

Sometime back (before I bought Nvidia GTS-450) I was using onboard HD3300
series IGP and later added a 3450. I had originally been using the radeonhd
driver fairly successfully, but I had read the Catalyst (fglrx) drivers had
been improving, so I gave them a go.
I noticed the packaged binaries available from repos were outdated so I went
ahead and downloaded the latest from AMD/ATI web site. Somewhere around 6-9
months ago AMD/ATI began to make a push to get their Linux drivers to be a
little more equal to the Windows ones. Starting about 10.3, or so, they were
getting better almost by the month. They still hadn't caught NVidia yet, but
the knew they were behind and you could see they were really trying.

Post by Stan Goodman
He also has similar Nvidia cards. I am shying away from Nvidia because I
have seen over the years so many discussions about difficulties, perhaps
quirks in the available drivers, that make them seem like avoidable
trouble. And yet I know that many buy and use them, so I am perhaps
exaggerating the risk. I'd be happy to read any comment anyone has to
offer about this.

I am using a GTS 450 Nvidia card today. As much as the Catalyst (fglrx)
stuff was steadily improving I almost wish I had stayed with AMD/ATI. The
problem I had was that even though they got dual monitor support going
again, in order to use it they used Xinerama (which is slow). When support
for dual monitors was running 3D acceleration was automatically turned off.
So you couldn't have 2 monitors _and_ 3D accel at the same time. Switched to
the Nvidia about 4 months ago so I do not know if maybe this situation has
changed (wrt fglrx) since then.
I had used Nvidia 'Twinview' previously on an older machine with an AGP GT
6600 based video card and knew that it worked. With 'Twinview' (Nvidia
Xinerama replacement) you don't lose 3D acceleration. Also the libvdpau
support works fairly well and the AMD/ATI equivalent isn't quite "there"
yet. The latest recent release of the Adobe Flash player for 64 bit even has
support for the Nvidia libvdpau. IIRC the latest Nvidia cards (like mine and
newer) also go all the way to OpenGL 4.x if used with the drivers downloaded
from Nvidia web site and manually installed (which is what I do).
Now for the bad news: I have been having a steady problem with NVidia
drivers and the desktop effects under KDE 4.6.x. The last driver that works
entirely correct is 260.19.44 and I had to patch a file in order to use it
with kernel 2.6.39-2-desktop. It will not build on any newer kernels. All
the newer Nvidia releases since then build and install correctly on any
newer kernel but the Kwin desktop effects problem still is present. Even if
I turn off desktop effects (better) I can still get some minor glitches in
some window decorations. So I have been using the 2.6.39-2-desktop kernel
and stayed with the 260.19.44 Nvidia drivers to keep everything "right".
For me the greatest advantage Nvidia has is I can run dual monitors _and_
have 3D acceleration.
A new 275.19 dropped yesterday, and while I've already downloaded I haven't
tried installing it yet. Just about to try that now....
-Mike

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Sebastian Siebert

Post by Stan Goodman
Since there is no available driver for the Intel HD Integrated Graphics
card on the Intel MB I bought last week, I've inquired about supported
PCI Express cards that I could install instead. My usual merchant
carries cards of Ndivia and ATI, and has in stock ATI HD3650.
A web search assures me that this card belongs to the Redeon series;
<man ati> says that Radeon is supported, so I assume that this one is.
He also has similar Nvidia cards. I am shying away from Nvidia because I
have seen over the years so many discussions about difficulties, perhaps
quirks in the available drivers, that make them seem like avoidable
trouble. And yet I know that many buy and use them, so I am perhaps
exaggerating the risk. I'd be happy to read any comment anyone has to
offer about this.

Hi Stan,
I have experienced the same story with NVIDIA in the past (ago 3-4
years). This was the reason that I switched to AMD graphics card. I
have not regretted it.
I have a ATI Radeon 3870 in my computer. It works with the radeon
driver (depended of used kernel version, but sometimes not really
good) or the proprietary ATI Catalyst Display Driver from AMD (That is
currently a better choice).
There is also one other reason to buy an AMD graphics card. ;-) I am
the openSUSE Packaging Script Maintainer for ATI Catalyst and a
intensive beta tester of ATI Catalyst Driver for next versions since
November 2010 and have a direct contact with AMD. I like to mediate
between openSUSE user and AMD, if any problems arise with the driver.
I help the user in setting up the graphics card, but often is not
necessary. It is easy to install on openSUSE.
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:ATI_drivers
Everyone gets the graphics card, which he deserves. ;-)

That last line is scary!

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
Since there is no available driver for the Intel HD Integrated Graphics
card on the Intel MB I bought last week, I've inquired about supported
PCI Express cards that I could install instead. My usual merchant
carries cards of Ndivia and ATI, and has in stock ATI HD3650.
A web search assures me that this card belongs to the Redeon series;
<man ati> says that Radeon is supported, so I assume that this one is.
He also has similar Nvidia cards. I am shying away from Nvidia because I
have seen over the years so many discussions about difficulties, perhaps
quirks in the available drivers, that make them seem like avoidable
trouble. And yet I know that many buy and use them, so I am perhaps
exaggerating the risk. I'd be happy to read any comment anyone has to
offer about this.

http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2011-07/msg00172.html is the last
thread on this subject in this forum, less than two weeks ago.

I'll view it.

Post by Felix Miata
If you find spending money because your Intel hardware is too new for
full support annoying: neither, at least until you've tried
Tumbleweed, and failing that as a solution, thought about accepting
1024x768 for a few weeks or months until full Sandy Bridge support
shows up in 11.4+Tumbleweed.

I investigated Tumbleweed when you mentioned it a few days ago. I didn't
find that there was a ready solution for the problem, and the
introductory page was careful to emphasize the as-is nature of the goal
of Tumbleweed. As I wrote to Mike in this thread, I am all for waiting
for a proper driver for the graphics card I have, not least, but not
only, because it will be free (as in free beer). That's why I asked him
about his estimate of a time frame. Weeks is trivial; months is
bearable; more than that is unnecessary.

Post by Felix Miata
If games and/or maximum 3D performance matter to you: NV

I don't play games.

Post by Felix Miata
I stay away from games and infrequently fuss over lack of performance,
so stick mostly to Intel, ATI, & even MGA, and always to FOSS drivers.
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=706305

I mentioned in my query that this was my impression from years of seeing
discussions on forums, and not only on Linux forums.

Post by Felix Miata
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=706024#c3
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2011-07/msg00259.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-xorg/2011-07/msg00000.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-factory/2010-10/msg00241.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse/2011-03/msg00705.html
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=675793#c8
Multiple private threads between myself and Bob S, who frequently
comes here for openSUSE on NV help.

I begin to comprehend your point.

Thanks, to you and the others...

[Michael Powell]

Stan Goodman wrote:

[snip]

Post by Stan Goodman
But if you say that Intel support for their chip is "right around the
corner", that opens up a more appealing possibility. Since you seem to
know the neighborhood and its corners, and I don't, can you give us a
clue of what "right around" means? And how confident your are about your
estimate?

I have used both ATI and Nvidia, but not Intel so I am not quite as
knowledgeable in the area as I probably "sound". I think Intel provided the
guy at Phoronix with a laptop to help with testing out and assisting with
fixes. For the last couple of months, or so, he has pretty well provided a
fairly up-to-date running account of the status of Intel drivers. I've been
interested in this and reading up on it because I am thinking about a new
desktop box about the time Ivy Bridge comes out. An example:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_windows_sna&num=1

Post by Stan Goodman
The driver that the system has chosen as its best shot is not impossible
to work with, for simple purposes anyway. I can view film clips on the
websites I use for news, and the Web in general is not suffering. The
difficulty so far is pop-up menus that have an artifact that makes them
hard or impossible to read (thin white bars, horizontal and vertical)
obscuring the text of the menu; that has got to go. But I can tolerate
it for a time, if I have some notion of how much time is involved.

What I would do if it were me is essentially what Felix said in his [OT:
Sandy Bridge] post. Getting ahold of all the freshest source code for
everything needed and building it yourself is probably not a good idea for
any one of several reasons. But going the route Felix suggested will get you
newer Intel drivers than what you currently have, and which just might make
enough difference for now. It's also the easiest thing you can do right
away. Whether it will be a magic silver bullet, or not, I can't really say.
If it improves your situation that's great, if not time for plan "B". :-)

-Mike

[snip]

[Sebastian Siebert]

I have experienced the same story with NVIDIA in the past (ago 3-4 years).
This was the reason that I switched to AMD graphics card. I have not
regretted it.
I have a ATI Radeon 3870 in my computer. It works with the radeon driver
(depended of used kernel version, but sometimes not really good) or the
proprietary ATI Catalyst Display Driver from AMD (That is currently a better
choice).
There is also one other reason to buy an AMD graphics card. ;-) I am the
openSUSE Packaging Script Maintainer for ATI Catalyst and a intensive beta
tester of ATI Catalyst Driver for next versions since November 2010 and have
a direct contact with AMD. I like to mediate between openSUSE user and AMD,
if any problems arise with the driver. I help the user in setting up the
graphics card, but often is not necessary. It is easy to install on
openSUSE.
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:ATI_drivers
Everyone gets the graphics card, which he deserves. ;-)

One thing to keep in mind... if you're a gamer and/or like to play
games in Wine, ATI is nothing but a headache and then some. The vast
majority of games that work perfect in Wine using nVidia cards fail in
odd ways on ATI cards. Of course, if you're not a gamer, it's not so
much of an issue.
I've had nothing but trouble with ATI, but that's been with the older
card models. If you want an idea of the scope of the problems with
ATI cards, look back in the list history here with the detailed emails
(from David Rankin) of the significant issues encountered with ATI
dropping binary driver support for cards, and the problems getting
cards working... the discussions were late 2009, and early 2010. Yah,
I know, a long time ago, and drivers change, but it's well worth the
dig through the archive to get an idea of the pain people have had
with ATI.
I've got a couple computers with ATI video (can't remember the model
numbers.. it's been a while since I used them), and ATI dropped binary
driver support for the cards... last openSUSE release that worked on
install with the video card was 11.0, and 11.1 with workarounds
provided by David Rankin. The cards do work with the FLOSS drivers,
but I can't get any performance out of them... that means video
playback is next to useless... HDMI doesn't work... Flash is nothing
sort of terrible... as a result the computers are stuck either running
Windows where the native Windows drivers work fine, or stuck in
storage... they are both in storage... replaced by a machine with
Intel video. I actually get significantly better performance out of
the Intel 3150 video card than I did with the ATI card.

Hi C.,

Wine is in fact a separate issue. Emulations of Windows games do not
always run smoothly. But I am not a gamer for Windows and have not much
money for these games to test it intensively. I test the ATI Catalyst
Beta Driver with 3D games for openSUSE. Mostly like Nexuiz, g117,
AlienArena, torcs, Warzone 2100. Or other games like Bos Wars, ASC,
freeciv, OpenTTD, Wesnoth, Widelands. All these games run really
smoothly with ATI Catalyst, where the free (FOSS) radeon driver has
sometimes problems with some games.

You tell about issues of the ATI Catalyst within 2009-2010. This was a
problematic time that I think you're right. The last volunteer
maintainer of ATI Catalyst for openSUSE is disappeared. I do not know
what happened to him. Now we should talk about today and not the past.
;-) Since I am officially maintainer and beta tester of ATI Catalyst for
openSUSE, it has done a lot. The guys from AMD put a lot of work purely
in ATI Catalyst. AMD is recently a very good listener and takes the
problems seriously.

[Michael Powell]

Stan Goodman wrote:

[snip]

Post by Stan Goodman
But if you say that Intel support for their chip is "right around the
corner", that opens up a more appealing possibility. Since you seem to
know the neighborhood and its corners, and I don't, can you give us a
clue of what "right around" means? And how confident your are about your
estimate?

Not confident at all, as it would really only be crystal-ball gazing, at
best. My gut feeling is maybe to look again in something like a 3 month time
frame. Just because engineers are rapidly trying to get something together
in the sources, it will still take time for distros to package and begin
distributing to users. And even this is just a huge wild guess 'feeling' on
my part, certainly nothing to take to the bank.

[snip]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Michael Powell
A new 275.19 dropped yesterday, and while I've already downloaded I
haven't tried installing it yet. Just about to try that now....

Still the same problem. Sigh. I guess this is something Nvidia is expecting
the KWin devs to fix...

-Mike

[Randall R Schulz]

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
Since there is no available driver for the Intel HD Integrated
Graphics card on the Intel MB I bought last week...

I wouldn't give up on Sandy Bridge yet. IIRC, another frequent
participant here, Randall R Schulz, came here for Sandy Bridge help
with 11.4 not too long ago, and I'll bet he got if working. Maybe a
list mail archive search will produce hits you can use to that end.
...

I recently built and am now using a Sandy Bridge system based on an ASUS
P8P67-family mainboard. I chose an nVidia graphics card. Note that this
particular ASUS board does not include the Intel graphics hardware, so
a discrete graphics card is required.

While I'm not a graphics-intensive users (no gaming, e.g.) I do make
some use of the KDE 4 desktop effects and some 3D applications like
Stellarium, Celestia. Google Earth and Second Life.

I have had no trouble installing and using the binary nVidia driver.

On the other hand, this board seems prone to generating spurious
interrupts, which leads the kernel to disable a particular IRQ. I don't
think it has anything to do with the nVidia board, though sometimes it
is that IRQ that acts up. BIOS updates released since the board was
manufactured seem to have reduced the problem considerably, though not
entirely eliminated it.


Randall Schulz

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Michael Powell
[snip]

Post by Stan Goodman
But if you say that Intel support for their chip is "right around the
corner", that opens up a more appealing possibility. Since you seem to
know the neighborhood and its corners, and I don't, can you give us a
clue of what "right around" means? And how confident your are about your
estimate?

Not confident at all, as it would really only be crystal-ball gazing, at
best. My gut feeling is maybe to look again in something like a 3 month time
frame. Just because engineers are rapidly trying to get something together
in the sources, it will still take time for distros to package and begin
distributing to users. And even this is just a huge wild guess 'feeling' on
my part, certainly nothing to take to the bank.
[snip]
Thanks. I'm glad I asked what "right around the corner" meant.
-Mike

[Joachim Schrod]

Post by Stan Goodman
But if you say that Intel support for their chip is "right around the
corner", that opens up a more appealing possibility.

Stan, I haven't followed this thread closely enough: Which Intel
embedded graphics chip do you have that's not working?

I have a Dell desktop with Intel i7-2600 that has an HD3000
embedded graphic. X works here on 11.4.

Joachim

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Joachim Schrod

Post by Stan Goodman
But if you say that Intel support for their chip is "right around the
corner", that opens up a more appealing possibility.

Stan, I haven't followed this thread closely enough: Which Intel
embedded graphics chip do you have that's not working?
I have a Dell desktop with Intel i7-2600 that has an HD3000
embedded graphic. X works here on 11.4.
Joachim

It's called "Intel HD Integrated Graphics".

[Joachim Schrod]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Joachim Schrod

Post by Stan Goodman
But if you say that Intel support for their chip is "right around the
corner", that opens up a more appealing possibility.

Stan, I haven't followed this thread closely enough: Which Intel
embedded graphics chip do you have that's not working?
I have a Dell desktop with Intel i7-2600 that has an HD3000
embedded graphic. X works here on 11.4.
Joachim

It's called "Intel HD Integrated Graphics".

That's a chip family. Probably its HD2000 or HD3000.

As I wrote: it works here in a desktop setting. It's not
appropriate for gaming, but for office work it's sufficient. I
don't know if suspend works; my new Thinkpad T420s that has also
this graphics chip hasn't arrived yet. Then I'll know. ;-)

AFAIK,
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/
has version 2.15.0 of the intel driver that's more current than the
one from 11.4+updates (2.14.0). Maybe that helps with your problems.

Cheers,
Joachim

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Joachim Schrod

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Joachim Schrod

Post by Stan Goodman
But if you say that Intel support for their chip is "right around the
corner", that opens up a more appealing possibility.

Stan, I haven't followed this thread closely enough: Which Intel
embedded graphics chip do you have that's not working?
I have a Dell desktop with Intel i7-2600 that has an HD3000
embedded graphic. X works here on 11.4.
Joachim

It's called "Intel HD Integrated Graphics".

That's a chip family. Probably its HD2000 or HD3000.

No, the chipset is called "H67 Express Chip Set". That's what the
Product Guide calls it.

Post by Joachim Schrod
As I wrote: it works here in a desktop setting. It's not
appropriate for gaming, but for office work it's sufficient. I
don't know if suspend works; my new Thinkpad T420s that has also
this graphics chip hasn't arrived yet. Then I'll know. ;-)
AFAIK,
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/
has version 2.15.0 of the intel driver that's more current than the
one from 11.4+updates (2.14.0). Maybe that helps with your problems.
Cheers,
Joachim

[Karl-Heinz tm]

----------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:54:37 +0300
Subject: Re: [opensuse] Re: Nvidia vs ATI

Post by Joachim Schrod

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Joachim Schrod

Post by Stan Goodman
But if you say that Intel support for their chip is "right around the
corner", that opens up a more appealing possibility.

Stan, I haven't followed this thread closely enough: Which Intel
embedded graphics chip do you have that's not working?
I have a Dell desktop with Intel i7-2600 that has an HD3000
embedded graphic. X works here on 11.4.
Joachim

It's called "Intel HD Integrated Graphics".

That's a chip family. Probably its HD2000 or HD3000.

No, the chipset is called "H67 Express Chip Set". That's what the
Product Guide calls it.

I'll give it a try to straighten up the terms:

- SandyBridge:  Intel code name for 2nd generation core i (i3/5/7-abcd).
First generation was core i3/5/7-xyz.
- HD2000 / HD3000:  name Intel has given to the "integrated graphics"
in SandyBridge processors.  Some desktop SB's have HD2000, others HD3000,
whereas all the mobile SB's (known to me at least) sport a HD3000,
according to Intel nomenclature.
- H67:  name of the motherboard "chipset" (it's single-chip, AFAIK) - the "chipset"
is not involved in rendering graphics output, but needs to make the "Integrated
Graphics" available to the outside world (via a VGA/DVI/HDMI connector)

/K.-H.

Post by Joachim Schrod
As I wrote: it works here in a desktop setting. It's not
appropriate for gaming, but for office work it's sufficient. I
don't know if suspend works; my new Thinkpad T420s that has also
this graphics chip hasn't arrived yet. Then I'll know. ;-)
AFAIK,
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/
has version 2.15.0 of the intel driver that's more current than the
one from 11.4+updates (2.14.0). Maybe that helps with your problems.
Cheers,
Joachim

--
Stan Goodman
Qiryat Tiv'on
Israel
--

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To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+***@opensuse.org
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[David Haller]

Hello,

Experience with Nvidia BLOB has also been good, except that in 11.4 I
have not been able to get them to work (get blank screen).

Try the 270.41.06 from nVidia's website. That's a "known" good
version. I don't know what's current in the nvidia Repo but there are
some "bad" drivers out there that can fry some older cards (8xxx and
9xxx) reportedly. Ah, found it: avoid 270.61 and 275.33.

HTH,
-dnh

[David Haller]

Hello,

Post by Randall R Schulz
I recently built and am now using a Sandy Bridge system based on an ASUS
P8P67-family mainboard. I chose an nVidia graphics card. Note that this
particular ASUS board does not include the Intel graphics hardware, so
a discrete graphics card is required.

The CPU includes the GPU hardware -- the Chipset (P67) just does not
connect it to anything. C.f. Z68, Q67, B67, H67 chipsets ...

I hate how Intel arbitrarily castrates is hardware (You only get A
with B but only without C and D, or C and with E but not D). Or
whatever. The Series 6 Chipsets and Sandy Bridge CPUs are a prime
example.

-dnh

[Karl-Heinz tm]

Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2011 03:01:05 +0200
Subject: Re: [opensuse] Nvidia vs ATI
Hello,

Experience with Nvidia BLOB has also been good, except that in 11.4 I
have not been able to get them to work (get blank screen).

FWIW, I have been running OS11.3 and 11.4 (and Ubuntu 10.10 and 11.04)
on a machine that features chipset-embedded NVidia graphics (GeForce
9300), and for use cases as described by Stan I have never had any issues
running the proprietary NVidia driver.

BR, Karl-Heinz

Try the 270.41.06 from nVidia's website. That's a "known" good
version. I don't know what's current in the nvidia Repo but there are
some "bad" drivers out there that can fry some older cards (8xxx and
9xxx) reportedly. Ah, found it: avoid 270.61 and 275.33.
HTH,
-dnh
--
Less is more or less more
--

--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+***@opensuse.org
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[Karl-Heinz tm]

Post by Michael Powell
[snip]

Post by Stan Goodman
But if you say that Intel support for their chip is "right around the
corner", that opens up a more appealing possibility. Since you seem to
know the neighborhood and its corners, and I don't, can you give us a
clue of what "right around" means? And how confident your are about your
estimate?

Not confident at all, as it would really only be crystal-ball gazing, at
best. My gut feeling is maybe to look again in something like a 3 month time
frame. Just because engineers are rapidly trying to get something together
in the sources, it will still take time for distros to package and begin
distributing to users. And even this is just a huge wild guess 'feeling' on
my part, certainly nothing to take to the bank.

Here's my results on a Dell Vostro 3750 (Sandybridge i3-2310):
- stock OS11.4 does not work;
- stock Ubuntu 11.04 (which has a slightly newer SW compilation) works.

I put the second line above for proof that Sandybridge graphics support
in Linux IS available.  But you will probably never get it to work in 11.4
because there will be no version upgrades e.g. of the Kernel within the release.

In my view, the way to go to get Sandybridge graphics support in OS11.4 is
what Felix described in an earlier post.  Concerning Tumbleweed, I'm running
another box on it (because I needed a feature from Kernel 2.6.39), and there
is absolutely no problem.  Unfortunately there's no Sandybridge on that box
so I can't verify if Tumbleweed or the other method described by Felix will
make it work.

K.-H.

Post by Michael Powell
[snip]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Michael Powell
A new 275.19 dropped yesterday, and while I've already downloaded I
haven't tried installing it yet. Just about to try that now....

Still the same problem. Sigh. I guess this is something Nvidia is expecting
the KWin devs to fix...
-Mike
--

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
Since there is no available driver for the Intel HD Integrated Graphics
card on the Intel MB I bought last week...

I wouldn't give up on Sandy Bridge yet. IIRC, another frequent
participant here, Randall R Schulz, came here for Sandy Bridge help
with 11.4 not too long ago, and I'll bet he got if working. Maybe a
list mail archive search will produce hits you can use to that end.
Saving
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo
to /etc/zypp/repos.d/ will provide zypper and YaST access to install
newer Xorg, including the latest Intel driver. I have guess that's all
you really need, but maybe for it to work you'd need a newer kernel as
well.

I need to ask a question here, to ensure that I not screw the operation
up. I have visited the above URL and see that it returns a few lines
resembling the content of other files in the target directory. Trying to
save it to that directory, however, gets this response:

*****
/etc/zypp/repos.d/X11:XOrg.txt could not be saved, because you cannot
change the contents of that folder.

Change the folder properties and try again, or try saving in a different
location.
*****

It says "properties", not "permissions", which is what usually happens
in similar cases. Does it want a (temporary) change permissions or
ownership, or something else?

Post by Felix Miata
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable/standard/Kernel:stable.repo
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/Tumbleweed/standard/openSUSE:Tumbleweed.repo
to /etc/zypp/repos.d/ will provide zypper and YaST access to install
2.6.39 kernels, which surely by now have full Sandy Bridge support. I
suggest you test with Xorg first, and if that's not enough, go for the
stable kernel, and then if it isn't enough, switch from stable to
Tumbleweed, which will _convert_ your 11.4 to "Tumbleweed". If you go
either kernel route, be sure to goto /etc/zypp/zypp.conf and remove
"#" from the line including "multiversion =
provides:multiversion(kernel)". That way your old kernel(s) will
remain installed as fallback in case you have a problem with newer.
Most of my 11.4 systems run a 2.6.39 kernel from one of these two
"kernel" repos.
FWIW in case dead dinosaur consumption matters to you, separate
graphic cards normally do consume more power than onboard chips. AIUI,
one of the advantages of Sandy Bridge is having the GPU on the CPU
die, saving even more power.

I think it it isn't the whole dinosaur that is the concern, only the
schmaltz. But in general, I hold that any deceased creature, whether
edible or no, deserves not to be immolated.

[Felix Miata]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Felix Miata
Saving
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo
to /etc/zypp/repos.d/ will provide zypper and YaST access to install
newer Xorg, including the latest Intel driver. I have guess that's all
you really need, but maybe for it to work you'd need a newer kernel as
well.

I need to ask a question here, to ensure that I not screw the operation
up. I have visited the above URL and see that it returns a few lines
resembling the content of other files in the target directory. Trying to
*****
/etc/zypp/repos.d/X11:XOrg.txt could not be saved, because you cannot
change the contents of that folder.
Change the folder properties and try again, or try saving in a different
location.
*****
It says "properties", not "permissions", which is what usually happens
in similar cases. Does it want a (temporary) change permissions or
ownership, or something else?

If you look at the permissions on /etc/zypp/repos.d you'll see it isn't
writable except by root. I don't know what "it" is making the claim, but
permissions are directory properties. Pretty much anything you wish to change
directly yourself, as opposed to using some tool like YaST2, in the /etc
tree, needs to be done by root or sudo.
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Felix Miata
Saving
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo
to /etc/zypp/repos.d/ will provide zypper and YaST access to install
newer Xorg, including the latest Intel driver. I have guess that's all
you really need, but maybe for it to work you'd need a newer kernel as
well.

I need to ask a question here, to ensure that I not screw the operation
up. I have visited the above URL and see that it returns a few lines
resembling the content of other files in the target directory. Trying to
*****
/etc/zypp/repos.d/X11:XOrg.txt could not be saved, because you cannot
change the contents of that folder.
Change the folder properties and try again, or try saving in a different
location.
*****
It says "properties", not "permissions", which is what usually happens
in similar cases. Does it want a (temporary) change permissions or
ownership, or something else?

If you look at the permissions on /etc/zypp/repos.d you'll see it
isn't writable except by root. I don't know what "it" is making the
claim, but permissions are directory properties. Pretty much anything
you wish to change directly yourself, as opposed to using some tool
like YaST2, in the /etc tree, needs to be done by root or sudo.

So it means "permissions" and not something else. That's the answer to
the question. Thanks.

[Felix Miata]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
It says "properties", not "permissions", which is what usually happens
in similar cases. Does it want a (temporary) change permissions or
ownership, or something else?

If you look at the permissions on /etc/zypp/repos.d you'll see it
isn't writable except by root. I don't know what "it" is making the
claim, but permissions are directory properties. Pretty much anything
you wish to change directly yourself, as opposed to using some tool
like YaST2, in the /etc tree, needs to be done by root or sudo.

So it means "permissions" and not something else. That's the answer to
the question. Thanks.

Presumably, since you failed to define the "it" that used the word
"properties". What had you tried to save it there with?
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Tejas Guruswamy]

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
It says "properties", not "permissions", which is what usually happens
in similar cases. Does it want a (temporary) change permissions or
ownership, or something else?

If you look at the permissions on /etc/zypp/repos.d you'll see it
isn't writable except by root. I don't know what "it" is making the
claim, but permissions are directory properties. Pretty much anything
you wish to change directly yourself, as opposed to using some tool
like YaST2, in the /etc tree, needs to be done by root or sudo.

So it means "permissions" and not something else. That's the answer to
the question. Thanks.

Presumably, since you failed to define the "it" that used the word
"properties". What had you tried to save it there with?

I would guess Firefox / a web browser, given it tried to change the
extension :P

Anyway, Stan, the quickest way to do it is to on the command line, as
root (so first su/sudo) enter
zypper ar --repo
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo

or even
zypper ar --repo http://r.opensu.se/X11:XOrg.repo

Regards,
Tejas

[Felix Miata]

Post by Tejas Guruswamy
the quickest way to do it is to on the command line, as
root (so first su/sudo) enter
zypper ar --repo
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo

Quicker for you maybe. For someone finding a new other otherwise unused repo
on their own, as opposed to being spoonfed an URL from email, the most
expedient way shoots it directly to its target location from its discovered
location with two keystrokes, F5 followed by Return, using MC's built in FTP
to first locate it, then copy it to its target location, then edit away the
naming fluff & redundance, and nuisance colons, with F4 (MCEdit).
--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
It says "properties", not "permissions", which is what usually happens
in similar cases. Does it want a (temporary) change permissions or
ownership, or something else?

If you look at the permissions on /etc/zypp/repos.d you'll see it
isn't writable except by root. I don't know what "it" is making the
claim, but permissions are directory properties. Pretty much anything
you wish to change directly yourself, as opposed to using some tool
like YaST2, in the /etc tree, needs to be done by root or sudo.

So it means "permissions" and not something else. That's the answer to
the question. Thanks.

Presumably, since you failed to define the "it" that used the word
"properties". What had you tried to save it there with?

Sorry, I thought I was clear; apparently I was not. As I said, I had
entered the URL with the browser (Firefox), and tried to <Save as> to
the target directory, and received the error message. I did see that the
directory's privileges required root for writing, but wanted to be
certain that this was the only reason for the refusal, because of what
seemed an unclear wording of the error message, so I asked, in the
interest of clarity -- "better to be safe than sorry". My solution last
night (wee hours), which seemed simple enough, was to save the file
instead to the Desktop, and then, as root, to move it in a terminal to
the target directory.

As I understand from a previous message from you, the presence of this
new file makes it possible for YaST to see newer versions of Xorg;
searching in YaST for "graphics", or "xorg", or "intel", I do not notice
anything that looks like a newer Xorg, so it's possible I have omitted a
step. I won't progress to the matter of the kernel until I'm sure that
the Xorg matter is resolved.

Meanwhile, I've got the page
<http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Configuring_graphics_cards#Symptom> on the
browser, and will read it now.

[Felix Miata]

Post by Stan Goodman
Sorry, I thought I was clear; apparently I was not. As I said, I had
entered the URL with the browser (Firefox), and tried to<Save as> to
the target directory, and received the error message.

Absent running FF as root, that would be expected behavior.

Post by Stan Goodman
I did see that the
directory's privileges required root for writing, but wanted to be
certain that this was the only reason for the refusal, because of what
seemed an unclear wording of the error message, so I asked, in the
interest of clarity -- "better to be safe than sorry". My solution last

Without knowing you were trying to save with FF, it wasn't possible to be
certain why you got the message you got.

Post by Stan Goodman
night (wee hours), which seemed simple enough, was to save the file
instead to the Desktop, and then, as root, to move it in a terminal to
the target directory.

Saving somewhere other than the ultimate destination, then moving or copying
it is usually prudent. That procedure provides some insurance against against
overwriting a file for which you have no ready or any backup, and might
dearly wish you had.

Post by Stan Goodman
As I understand from a previous message from you, the presence of this
new file makes it possible for YaST to see newer versions of Xorg;
searching in YaST for "graphics", or "xorg", or "intel", I do not notice

Without adding that repo, YaST Software immediately after an installation was
completed but before any updates were applied would show:
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-52.4.x86_64.rpm currently installed, which from
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/suse/x86_64/ you can
see was built in February. It would also show
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-53.56.1.x86_64.rpm as the newer available version
you probably have now which
http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/rpm/x86_64/ shows was built in
April. Compare those to the obviously very much newer
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-229.1.x86_64.rpm from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64/
that you'd get now by adding the new repo and updating, and you should see a
pretty substantial likelihood that time's been ample to incorporate Sandy
Bridge support, even if it hadn't been mentioned elsewhere in the thread that
that is indeed the case.

Post by Stan Goodman
anything that looks like a newer Xorg, so it's possible I have omitted a
step. I won't progress to the matter of the kernel until I'm sure that
the Xorg matter is resolved.

No thread participant has proffered any reason not to use a newer kernel
whether or not the newer drivers solve your problem independently.

Post by Stan Goodman
Meanwhile, I've got the page
<http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Configuring_graphics_cards#Symptom> on the
browser, and will read it now.

--
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
Sorry, I thought I was clear; apparently I was not. As I said, I had
entered the URL with the browser (Firefox), and tried to<Save as> to
the target directory, and received the error message.

Absent running FF as root, that would be expected behavior.

Post by Stan Goodman
I did see that the
directory's privileges required root for writing, but wanted to be
certain that this was the only reason for the refusal, because of what
seemed an unclear wording of the error message, so I asked, in the
interest of clarity -- "better to be safe than sorry". My solution last

Without knowing you were trying to save with FF, it wasn't possible to
be certain why you got the message you got.

What I wrote was:
*****
I need to ask a question here, to ensure that I not screw the operation
up. I have visited the above URL and see that it returns a few lines
resembling the content of other files in the target directory. Trying to
save it to that directory, however, gets this response:
*****
"Visited the URL" implied to me "browser". "Save", in the context of
"browser", seemed clear to me to mean "saving from the browser". I can
see that I might have written more explicitly.

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
night (wee hours), which seemed simple enough, was to save the file
instead to the Desktop, and then, as root, to move it in a terminal to
the target directory.

Saving somewhere other than the ultimate destination, then moving or
copying it is usually prudent. That procedure provides some insurance
against against overwriting a file for which you have no ready or any
backup, and might dearly wish you had.

That is why I do not generally move files, but first copy the original,
then delete the original instead.

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
As I understand from a previous message from you, the presence of this
new file makes it possible for YaST to see newer versions of Xorg;
searching in YaST for "graphics", or "xorg", or "intel", I do not notice

Without adding that repo, YaST Software immediately after an
installation was completed but before any updates were applied would
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-52.4.x86_64.rpm currently installed, which from
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/suse/x86_64/
you can see was built in February. It would also show
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-53.56.1.x86_64.rpm as the newer available
version you probably have now which
http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/rpm/x86_64/ shows was built
in April. Compare those to the obviously very much newer
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-229.1.x86_64.rpm from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64/
that you'd get now by adding the new repo and updating, and you should
see a pretty substantial likelihood that time's been ample to
incorporate Sandy Bridge support, even if it hadn't been mentioned
elsewhere in the thread that that is indeed the case.

The current driver is now 7.6-53.58.1. I'll update to it now (although
I'm not sure this is a necessary step), then add the new repo, and post
what happened.

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
anything that looks like a newer Xorg, so it's possible I have omitted a
step. I won't progress to the matter of the kernel until I'm sure that
the Xorg matter is resolved.

No thread participant has proffered any reason not to use a newer
kernel whether or not the newer drivers solve your problem independently.

Post by Stan Goodman
Meanwhile, I've got the page
<http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Configuring_graphics_cards#Symptom> on the
browser, and will read it now.

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Felix Miata
Without adding that repo, YaST Software immediately after an
installation was completed but before any updates were applied would
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-52.4.x86_64.rpm currently installed, which
from
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/suse/x86_64/
you can see was built in February. It would also show
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-53.56.1.x86_64.rpm as the newer available
version you probably have now which
http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/rpm/x86_64/ shows was built
in April. Compare those to the obviously very much newer
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-229.1.x86_64.rpm from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64/
that you'd get now by adding the new repo and updating, and you
should see a pretty substantial likelihood that time's been ample to
incorporate Sandy Bridge support, even if it hadn't been mentioned
elsewhere in the thread that that is indeed the case.

The current driver is now 7.6-53.58.1. I'll update to it now (although
I'm not sure this is a necessary step), then add the new repo, and
post what happened.

Neither of the actions in the small paragraph above was successful. The
first, which I think was superfluous anyway, closed the Software Manager
window at once without doing anything. The attempt to add the repo to
the list brought the following: "Unable to create repository from URL
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64".

[Patrick Shanahan]

The attempt to add the repo to the list brought the following: "Unable
to create repository from URL
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64".

from the control-line as root, issue (all one line):

zypper ar -r http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo

[Karl-Heinz tm]

Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 08:37:54 -0400
Subject: Re: [opensuse] Nvidia vs ATI [OT: Sandy Bridge]

The attempt to add the repo to the list brought the following: "Unable
to create repository from URL
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64".

you need to create the repository from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/

as opposed to
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64

/K.-H.

zypper ar -r http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo
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http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member
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[Stan Goodman]

Post by Patrick Shanahan

The attempt to add the repo to the list brought the following: "Unable
to create repository from URL
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64".

zypper ar -r http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo

Thank you, Patrick. That installed the repo. I am not clear on why YaST
was unable to do the same thing.

[Anton Aylward]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Patrick Shanahan

The attempt to add the repo to the list brought the following: "Unable
to create repository from URL
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64".

zypper ar -r http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo

Thank you, Patrick. That installed the repo. I am not clear on why YaST
was unable to do the same thing.

Dunno, but when I added that I now get

# yast2 sw_single
YaST got signal 11 at YCP file PackagesUI.ycp:273
/sbin/yast2: line 423: 6541 Segmentation fault $ybindir/y2base
$module "$@" "$SELECTED_GUI" $Y2_GEOMETRY $Y2UI_ARGS

ARGH!

So I manually deleted it from /etc/zypp/repos/

and I still have that problem.

ARGH!
--
"Is Penetration Testing Worth it?
There are two reasons why you might want to conduct a penetration test.
One, you want to know whether a certain vulnerability is present because
you're going to fix it if it is. And two, you need a big, scary report
to persuade your boss to spend more money. If neither is true, I'm going
to save you a lot of money by giving you this free penetration test:
You're vulnerable.
Now, go do something useful about it."
-- Bruce Schneier
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/05/is_penetration.html

[Karl-Heinz tm]

----------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:09:41 +0300
Subject: Re: [opensuse] Nvidia vs ATI [OT: Sandy Bridge]

Post by Patrick Shanahan

The attempt to add the repo to the list brought the following: "Unable
to create repository from URL
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64".

zypper ar -r http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo

Thank you, Patrick. That installed the repo. I am not clear on why YaST
was unable to do the same thing.

see my other email a couple of minutes ago, and also note the difference between your failed
(which included the architecture, i.e. x86_64) and successful (which did not include this bit)
attempts.
/K.-H.

--
Stan Goodman
Qiryat Tiv'on
Israel
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[Stan Goodman]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
Sorry, I thought I was clear; apparently I was not. As I said, I had
entered the URL with the browser (Firefox), and tried to<Save as> to
the target directory, and received the error message.

Absent running FF as root, that would be expected behavior.

Post by Stan Goodman
I did see that the
directory's privileges required root for writing, but wanted to be
certain that this was the only reason for the refusal, because of what
seemed an unclear wording of the error message, so I asked, in the
interest of clarity -- "better to be safe than sorry". My solution last

Without knowing you were trying to save with FF, it wasn't possible
to be certain why you got the message you got.

*****
I need to ask a question here, to ensure that I not screw the
operation up. I have visited the above URL and see that it returns a
few lines resembling the content of other files in the target
directory. Trying to save it to that directory, however, gets this
*****
"Visited the URL" implied to me "browser". "Save", in the context of
"browser", seemed clear to me to mean "saving from the browser". I can
see that I might have written more explicitly.

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
night (wee hours), which seemed simple enough, was to save the file
instead to the Desktop, and then, as root, to move it in a terminal to
the target directory.

Saving somewhere other than the ultimate destination, then moving or
copying it is usually prudent. That procedure provides some insurance
against against overwriting a file for which you have no ready or any
backup, and might dearly wish you had.

That is why I do not generally move files, but first copy the
original, then delete the original instead.

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
As I understand from a previous message from you, the presence of this
new file makes it possible for YaST to see newer versions of Xorg;
searching in YaST for "graphics", or "xorg", or "intel", I do not
notice

Without adding that repo, YaST Software immediately after an
installation was completed but before any updates were applied would
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-52.4.x86_64.rpm currently installed, which
from
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/suse/x86_64/
you can see was built in February. It would also show
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-53.56.1.x86_64.rpm as the newer available
version you probably have now which
http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/rpm/x86_64/ shows was built
in April. Compare those to the obviously very much newer
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-229.1.x86_64.rpm from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64/
that you'd get now by adding the new repo and updating, and you
should see a pretty substantial likelihood that time's been ample to
incorporate Sandy Bridge support, even if it hadn't been mentioned
elsewhere in the thread that that is indeed the case.

The current driver is now 7.6-53.58.1. I'll update to it now (although
I'm not sure this is a necessary step), then add the new repo, and
post what happened.

The new repo is installed. YaST shows these two new packages:
xorg-x11-driver-video-debuginfo v7.6.29.1 (also for 32bit)
xorg-x11-driver-video-debugsource v7.6.29.1

I assume I am to compile the source file, probably using the info file.
Where will I find information on how to do this?

[If someone would like to enlighten me about why YaST refused to update
the existing driver with the update it suggested (just as it refused
recently to update FF, although there too it had suggested an update), I
would be much indebted.]

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Karl-Heinz tm

Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 08:37:54 -0400
Subject: Re: [opensuse] Nvidia vs ATI [OT: Sandy Bridge]

The attempt to add the repo to the list brought the following: "Unable
to create repository from URL
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64".

you need to create the repository from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/
as opposed to
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64
/K.-H.

Aha! Thanks.

Post by Karl-Heinz tm

zypper ar -r http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/X11:XOrg.repo
--
(paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711
http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2
http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member
--

--

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
Sorry, I thought I was clear; apparently I was not. As I said, I had
entered the URL with the browser (Firefox), and tried to<Save as> to
the target directory, and received the error message.

Absent running FF as root, that would be expected behavior.

Post by Stan Goodman
I did see that the
directory's privileges required root for writing, but wanted to be
certain that this was the only reason for the refusal, because of what
seemed an unclear wording of the error message, so I asked, in the
interest of clarity -- "better to be safe than sorry". My solution
last

Without knowing you were trying to save with FF, it wasn't possible
to be certain why you got the message you got.

*****
I need to ask a question here, to ensure that I not screw the
operation up. I have visited the above URL and see that it returns a
few lines resembling the content of other files in the target
directory. Trying to save it to that directory, however, gets this
*****
"Visited the URL" implied to me "browser". "Save", in the context of
"browser", seemed clear to me to mean "saving from the browser". I
can see that I might have written more explicitly.

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
night (wee hours), which seemed simple enough, was to save the file
instead to the Desktop, and then, as root, to move it in a terminal to
the target directory.

Saving somewhere other than the ultimate destination, then moving or
copying it is usually prudent. That procedure provides some
insurance against against overwriting a file for which you have no
ready or any backup, and might dearly wish you had.

That is why I do not generally move files, but first copy the
original, then delete the original instead.

Post by Felix Miata

Post by Stan Goodman
As I understand from a previous message from you, the presence of this
new file makes it possible for YaST to see newer versions of Xorg;
searching in YaST for "graphics", or "xorg", or "intel", I do not
notice

Without adding that repo, YaST Software immediately after an
installation was completed but before any updates were applied would
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-52.4.x86_64.rpm currently installed, which
from
http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.4/repo/oss/suse/x86_64/
you can see was built in February. It would also show
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-53.56.1.x86_64.rpm as the newer available
version you probably have now which
http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.4/rpm/x86_64/ shows was built
in April. Compare those to the obviously very much newer
xorg-x11-driver-video-7.6-229.1.x86_64.rpm from
http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/x86_64/
that you'd get now by adding the new repo and updating, and you
should see a pretty substantial likelihood that time's been ample to
incorporate Sandy Bridge support, even if it hadn't been mentioned
elsewhere in the thread that that is indeed the case.

The current driver is now 7.6-53.58.1. I'll update to it now
(although I'm not sure this is a necessary step), then add the new
repo, and post what happened.

xorg-x11-driver-video-debuginfo v7.6.29.1 (also for 32bit)
xorg-x11-driver-video-debugsource v7.6.29.1
I assume I am to compile the source file, probably using the info
file. Where will I find information on how to do this?

I've found this page on a blog site:
<http://lslezak.blogspot.com/2011/04/installing-latest-intel-graphics-driver.html>.
It is a discussion of installation of the graphics on the i5 CPU, so the
same hardware I have here. His procedure seems, just at first blush, to
be different from that in this thread.

I have to read it more thoroughly.

[Karl-Heinz tm]

----------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:17:04 +0300
Subject: Re: [opensuse] Nvidia vs ATI [OT: Sandy Bridge]

/snip

<http://lslezak.blogspot.com/2011/04/installing-latest-intel-graphics-driver.html>.
It is a discussion of installation of the graphics on the i5 CPU, so the
same hardware I have here. His procedure seems, just at first blush, to
be different from that in this thread.
I have to read it more thoroughly.

/snip

What Ladislav is describing on his blog is the hard way. The first comment on the
blog suggests that there is also an easy way ("I think that you can just enable the
following repo:  http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/
that includes the latest intel driver. After that just "Switch Packages" from yast
to this repo").  This easy way is exactly what I and others on this thread have
suggested you to try. On the blog that you quote, it seems some people were successful
using the easy way while others were not.

Strangely, according to Intel's Linux driver page, Sandybridge graphics support is
already in the Q4/10 driver release, and all the components of this driver release
are in OS11.4 - which would explain that someone on this thread had it work out of
the box for him.  However, I myself had the same problem with stock OS11.4 as Ladislav
explains on his blog.  This should be fixed by updating to the Intel Q1/11 release,
either the hard way or easy way as explained above.

There is also a mention on Intel's driver page about mode setting issues in driver release
Q4/10 (equivalent with stock OS11.4), so that may in fact be the problem you got. I do not
understand completely the background of this problem presented on the Intel page, but it is
stated that upgrading the kernel solves it.

So here's what I would do:
1) do the X11 upgrade from the above repo;
2) upgrade the kernel e.g. from Tumbleweed;

I don't think that upgrading the hard way will help on top of these steps as it doesn't give
you anything different than the easy way, except all the headaches of circumventing your
distribution's SW management system, but you could still try that if it is still not working
after step 1 and 2 above.

/K.-H.

--
Stan Goodman
Qiryat Tiv'on
Israel
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[Stan Goodman]

Post by Karl-Heinz tm
----------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:17:04 +0300
Subject: Re: [opensuse] Nvidia vs ATI [OT: Sandy Bridge]

/snip

<http://lslezak.blogspot.com/2011/04/installing-latest-intel-graphics-driver.html>.
It is a discussion of installation of the graphics on the i5 CPU, so the
same hardware I have here. His procedure seems, just at first blush, to
be different from that in this thread.
I have to read it more thoroughly.

/snip
What Ladislav is describing on his blog is the hard way. The first comment on the
blog suggests that there is also an easy way ("I think that you can just enable the
following repo: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/X11:/XOrg/openSUSE_11.4/
that includes the latest intel driver. After that just "Switch Packages" from yast
to this repo"). This easy way is exactly what I and others on this thread have
suggested you to try. On the blog that you quote, it seems some people were successful
using the easy way while others were not.

When I did read the page more carefully, I saw that the first comment
starts with d/l the same repo that I have installed in this thread. So
presumably I could "Switch Packages" now, starting from my current
position. "Switch Packages", however, is a new one on me, as I have
never heard the term before. It does not sound like he is compiling the
debug package, but I see no other package, source or otherwise.

I am considering going the same route as Ladislav.

Post by Karl-Heinz tm
Strangely, according to Intel's Linux driver page, Sandybridge graphics support is
already in the Q4/10 driver release, and all the components of this driver release
are in OS11.4 - which would explain that someone on this thread had it work out of
the box for him. However, I myself had the same problem with stock OS11.4 as Ladislav
explains on his blog. This should be fixed by updating to the Intel Q1/11 release,
either the hard way or easy way as explained above.
There is also a mention on Intel's driver page about mode setting issues in driver release
Q4/10 (equivalent with stock OS11.4), so that may in fact be the problem you got. I do not
understand completely the background of this problem presented on the Intel page, but it is
stated that upgrading the kernel solves it.
1) do the X11 upgrade from the above repo;

That is where I am stuck at the moment. I have installed the new XOrg
repo, which has presented me with only source/debug package which I
assume I must compile. If so, how do I compile it?

Post by Karl-Heinz tm
2) upgrade the kernel e.g. from Tumbleweed;

I.e. visit one of the two URLs that Felix lists, and store its content
in /etc/zypp/repo.d? Then, by analogy with what I did for the XOrg repo,
install a new repo in YaST -- what URL?

Post by Karl-Heinz tm
I don't think that upgrading the hard way will help on top of these steps as it doesn't give
you anything different than the easy way, except all the headaches of circumventing your
distribution's SW management system, but you could still try that if it is still not working
after step 1 and 2 above.
/K.-H.

--
Stan Goodman
Qiryat Tiv'on
Israel
--

--

[Stan Goodman]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Karl-Heinz tm
1) do the X11 upgrade from the above repo;

That is where I am stuck at the moment. I have installed the new XOrg
repo, which has presented me with only source/debug package which I
assume I must compile. If so, how do I compile it?

It is an opensuse repo which provides rpm files. You install them, not
compile them.

Sorry, this does not help me interpret what I see. After adding the new
XOrg repo and searching YaST again for changes, I see only the three
lines I have reported:
xorg-x11-driver-video-debuginfo v7.6.29.1 (also for 32bit)
xorg-x11-driver-video-debugsource v7.6.29.1

To be very brief, I do not know what to do with these lines, especially
the first one, because I don't know what it is. Since the second one
seems to be the source for the desired driver, I concluded that I should
compile it. Now you tell me that it is not something to be compiled --
but don't add what it is instead, or what to do with it, or if there is
nothing to do with these files, what the repo is for at all. Brevity,
although the soul of wit, is not always adequate for communication.

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Karl-Heinz tm
2) upgrade the kernel e.g. from Tumbleweed;

I.e. visit one of the two URLs that Felix lists, and store its
content in /etc/zypp/repo.d? Then, by analogy with what I did for the
XOrg repo, install a new repo in YaST -- what URL?

look for "tumbleweed" ....

That's very telegraphic, and I probably ought to be able to build the
implied sentence around it. But my imagination seems to have deserted
me. Part of the reason is that I failed to understand the connection (in
the XOrg case) between the short file that I deposited in
</etc/zypp/repos.d> and the URL of the repo. What I do understand is
that we are trying to get a new driver and a now a new kernel from
Tumbleweed. Is the URL for the kernel the same as that for the XOrg case?

PLEASE, consider trimming your replies.

If I have not always been careful to trim, I apologize. As you know,
when and where to trim is often a judgment, and is therefore subjective.

[Patrick Shanahan]

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Karl-Heinz tm
1) do the X11 upgrade from the above repo;

That is where I am stuck at the moment. I have installed the new XOrg
repo, which has presented me with only source/debug package which I
assume I must compile. If so, how do I compile it?

It is an opensuse repo which provides rpm files. You install them, not
compile them.

Post by Stan Goodman

Post by Karl-Heinz tm
2) upgrade the kernel e.g. from Tumbleweed;

I.e. visit one of the two URLs that Felix lists, and store its
content in /etc/zypp/repo.d? Then, by analogy with what I did for the
XOrg repo, install a new repo in YaST -- what URL?

look for "tumbleweed" ....

PLEASE, consider trimming your replies.