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Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,429  

Asus 1000HE and similar - Newer drivers with older Intel chipsets

Hello:

I've successfully installed 32bit Devuan ASCII to run on my Asus 1000HE (Atom N280@166/2Gb RAM).

I then rid myself of Mozilla Firefox and installed Pale Mooon 28.5.0, I think it's probably a keeper.

Then, looking to solve an issue which I thought was related to Pale Mooon, I posted at the Pale Moon forum and was directed to a thread with this post:

https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.ph … 41#p160541

The issue I was looking to solve turned out to be totally unrelated to Pale Moon and directly related to the Intel chipset in my 1000HE and the new drivers/kernels.

groucho@devuan:~$ inxi -G
Graphics:  Card: Intel Mobile 945GSE Express Integrated Graphics Controller
           Display Server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: intel Resolution: 1024x600@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 945GME x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 13.0.6
groucho@devuan:~$ 

The fellow who posted the fix actually found it while looking for something else, unrelated to Pale Moon.
So when he came across the Pale Moon thread, decided to share it with the forum.

The references to the fix he found are these:

https://mxlinux.org/wiki/hardware/intel-video-driver
and
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … SNA_issues

Apparently the default acceleration method, called sna, can cause issues when using older intel chipsets. An alternative is to use the older acceleration method, uxa.

To do this, I followed the instructions in the links I posted above:

Created a file (as root) called /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf with the following contents:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "intel"
Option "AccelMethod" "uxa"
EndSection

I followed the instructions to the letter and the supposed Pale Moon issue ceased to exist. =-)

I had also been having some pointer lag problems on the desktop, not as severe as the ones with Pale Moon (a nuisance nevertheless) which at first I adscribed to the unit's touchpad or the Bluetooth mouse but now I see that they were related to the Intel chipset/driver configuration.

I'm posting it all this here as a heads-up and a future reference to anyone wanting to revive their Asus EeePCs.

But the merit belongs 100% to the original poster at the Pale Moon forum.

Cheers,

A.

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2019-03-24

Posts: 3,125  

Website

Re: Asus 1000HE and similar - Newer drivers with older Intel chipsets

The UXA acceleration method is ancient, have you tried Xorg's built-in modesetting DDX driver?

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-modesetting.conf:

Section "Device"
        Identifier "Device0"
        Driver "modesetting"
EndSection

---

Brianna Ghey — Rest In Power

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,429  

Re: Asus 1000HE and similar - Newer drivers with older Intel chipsets

Hello:

The UXA acceleration method is ancient ...

Yes, that's what (in a way) the post I referred to implies.
But the problem I (and others had) with Pale Moon had to do not with Pale Moon but with the (newer) default acceleration method setting ie: sna used on the older Intel chipsets, like the ones my Asus 1000HE has. Going back to uxa apparently solved the issue.

... have you tried Xorg's built-in modesetting DDX driver?

Actually, I had no idea about all this.
I came across this setting because of the issue I had with Pale Moon.

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-modesetting.conf:

Section "Device"
        Identifier "Device0"
        Driver "modesetting"
EndSection

I guess I can try it and see what happens.

And what do I do with /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf?
I guess there cannot be two acceleration settings.
Or are they unrelated?

Thanks for your input.

A.

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2019-03-24

Posts: 3,125  

Website

Re: Asus 1000HE and similar - Newer drivers with older Intel chipsets

what do I do with /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf?

You should delete it if you want to use 20-modesetting.conf

Sorry, I should have said that.

---

Brianna Ghey — Rest In Power

Altoid

Member

Registered: 2017-05-07

Posts: 1,429  

Re: Asus 1000HE and similar - Newer drivers with older Intel chipsets

Hello:

Sorry, I should have said that.

No problem ...
Things I should have said but never did.  8^D!

In any case, it doesn't work.
Boot freezes at ~34.000s on, right after eth0 gets up.
And there it stays, waiting for crtl+alt+del.

Fortunately I've been brushing up on my command line and fixed it in a jiffy.

It seems that the newer drivers are not so backwards compatible with the older chipsets. 

Thanks for your input.

A.