Re: sandybridge second generation and squeeze -- problems

[Mathieu Malaterre <mathieu.malaterre@gmail.com>]

Darren,

On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Ville Tiensuu <ville@tiensuu.eu> wrote:
> I have an i7 2600K (intel chip) machine (second gen sandybridge with
> graphics integrated on the processor) running squeeze.  THere are problems
> with X, particularly 'hard' reboots on changing tty, logging out, etc.
>
> Googling (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1728526&page=3)
> suggests that the problem is the 'stable' version of intel graphics driver
> (2.13) and that I need the latest (2.17).
>
> But in turn this needs a 2.6.38 kernel.
>
> I can install the kernel from backports, once I figure out how (I am a
> newbie, at this level of detail anyway), but even backports only goes up
> to 2.15 on the intel driver, so I need to build from source and install.
> It is also available from xorg-edgers through ppa, but as I understand it
> that is not available on Debian.
>
> Before I move away from a 'stable' system, I was hoping to get a little
> advice on managing this.  It is still not guarantted to work, but it seems
> the most likely solution.
>
> ANyone else had to do this?  I am wondering if others have had the problem
> but were able to solve it 'off list' and have not needed to post it.\

Maybe more of a debian-users related. Anyway, I believe I have a
similar machine :

$ lspci| grep -i sand
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge PCI Express Root
Port (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge
Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)

And I could get my X session to suspend/resume nicely using only
debian-backports stuff:

$ apt-cache policy xserver-xorg-video-intel
xserver-xorg-video-intel:
  Installed: 2:2.15.0-3~bpo60+2
  Candidate: 2:2.15.0-3~bpo60+2
  Version table:
     2:2.17.0+git20120101-2 0
         -1 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian/ experimental/main amd64 Packages
     2:2.17.0-1 0
        200 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian/ testing/main amd64 Packages
        100 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian/ unstable/main amd64 Packages
 *** 2:2.15.0-3~bpo60+2 0
        600 http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports/
squeeze-backports/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2:2.13.0-6 0
        500 http://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/main amd64 Packages

Running on:

$ uname -a
Linux maester 2.6.39-bpo.2-amd64 #1 SMP Tue Jul 26 10:35:23 UTC 2011
x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lshw
...
        *-display
             description: VGA compatible controller
             product: Sandy Bridge Integrated Graphics Controller
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 2
             bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
             version: 09
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
             configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
             resources: irq:51 memory:f1400000-f17fffff
memory:e0000000-efffffff ioport:5000(size=64)

The trick is simply:

http://backports-master.debian.org/Instructions/

2cts
-- 
Mathieu