Re: Intel i810 XServer? NOW Goes

[Dave Whiteley <d.l.whiteley@ee.leeds.ac.uk>]

Thanks for the pointer to the i810 data.

I now have the system working well.

To help others I have documented the stages I found necessary. 
Sorry if it is a bit long but I tried to make it as newbie friendly
as possible. 

#############################################################
The procedure for setting up the i810 X server on a DELL Optiplex
GS110 with GNU/Debian Linux.

First install Linux in the usual way, selecting the XWindows task, 
but do not allow it to create the XF86 Configuration  file.

When the initial installation is complete use dselect 
(or your favourite other method) to install the XServer-SVGA, and the
kernel source package. I make sure that I accept the suggestion
of a ncurses library packege at this point (for make menuconfig
later). Accept this as the default server, but again do not create the
configuration file.
When you run the second install you will probably find that a few
more packages will be installed, including gpm, the mouse driver. Make
sure that you do get a working configuration of this. On my machine
the default worked straight off.

Working as root, let us create a new directory to work in

mkdir /root/i810
cd /root/i810

Now you need to get one file 

I810Gtt-0.1-6.src.tar.gz 

in order to create a library file needed by the server. 
This is obtainable from 
http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/intel810/linuxsoftware.htm
, although you might need a web browser to get it. 
As Netscape needs the X server... 

Use another machine or another browser.

Get this file, and gunzip and untar it:-

gunzip I810Gtt-0.1-6.src.tar.gz

tar -xvf  I810Gtt-0.1-6.src.tar

This will give you a Makefile, a C file, an H file, and some other
stuff.
We need to run the makefile, 
but this relies upon access to the kernel source code, which is not
yet accessible.

When you install the kernel package this leaves a bzipped file called
kernel-source-versionguff in the directory /usr/src. Change to this
directory

cd /usr/src

and un-bzip the kernel package using the command

bunzip2 kernel-source-2.2.and-the-rest
 
This results in a tarball called kernel-source-version.tar.

Untar the tar ball with the command

tar -xvf kernel-source-version.tar

The i810 Makefile we obtained earlier needs files that depend upon
the configuration of the machine. These files are set up by another
makefile that has come with the kernel package. However the names of
the kernel directories depends upon the version of the kernel. 
To remove this version dependance it is assumed that the kernel stuff
is always in /usr/src/linux. To permit this create a symbolic link
with a command like 

ln -s /usr/src/kernel-source-2.2.15 /usr/src/linux

Now go to this directory

cd /usr/src/linux

and run the kernel makefile. There are several options, but the one I
usually use is

make menuconfig

You do not need to do any actual kernel configuration at this stage,
just choose Exit, and Yes to save your new kernel configuration file.

Return to the i810 directory.

cd /root/i810

(if you are using the same directories as me). 

Now you can compile the library file by just typing

make

If all is well, this should only take a moment and should create a
new file called agpgart.o

This is automatically installed in the right place by the command

make install

We are now ready to go.

There are two X configuration tools xf86config and  XF86Setup. 
I have only had sucess when using xf86config, at least for the first
time. Still as root, run it. Most of the stuff is obvious. The mouse 
should be set to Microsoft and its  
device to /dev/gpmdata, for it to match the GPM settings used above.

Enter the appropriate data for your display. When asked about
choosing a display card, choose to ignore the card list. When asked
for an identifier enter 

   i810. 

Then add whatever you want for the
manufacturer and model.

Choose suitable resolutions and allow the utility to write the
configuration file(s).

Now you should be able to use the command ``startx'' to start up the
X server.

If you get a grey screen, all is well. Get out of itb with the
keystrokes <CTL-ALT-BACKSPACE>

Once the system is working correctly you can use the graphical 
configuration command to tune your system. I found that I had to set
the RAMDAC
max speed to 100 (with the slider) and the ram to 4Mb.
Save the file, and that is it.
Hope this helps.   


----------------------------------
E-Mail: Dave Whiteley <d.l.whiteley@ee.leeds.ac.uk>  Date:
16-Jun-2000  Time: 17:47:06
Dave Whiteley, Senior Computer Officer, 
School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering
 
Any views or opinions expressed above are mine, not theirs.
----------------------------------
If reporters don't know that truth is plural, they ought to be
lawyers.
                -- Tom Wicker