EMGD for Ubuntu Lucid

[JWill41]

Hi, I'd like to request that the EMGD X driver be built for Ubuntu Lucid. This is the current long-term release of Ubuntu, which is the most popular Linux distribution available. I understand that MeeGo seems to be where Intel's Linux efforts are focused, but you have a lot of customers using other stuff, and AFAIK EMGD (and I guess IEGD) is the only supported driver for GMA500 currently. Thanks.

[Kirk_B_Intel]

The best thing to do to influence the POR is to get your needs known to an Intel Segment rep via an Intel Field person. We need to make POR decisions based on available resources and the ROI avaiable from a market segment. It seems like there are as many derivatives of Linux as there are Intel CPUs in the world so to do all of them would take an infinite number of developer and validation resources. Intel is big but not quite that big.

There is some good news here-

1. We are currently re-evaluating our Linux POR and aligning with the "long-term support" versions of certian distributions looks like a very good thing to do. A long term Ubunto is definitely being considered.

2. In general, IEGD and EMGD are fairly portable to various kernels except for major changes in areas like the GART/DRM and new features such as kernel mode setting. Getting either embedded driver working with a particular kernel is very do-able as we supply the source for that interface in the releases. We have imporved the portability steadily over time. Only if a major change occurs in the kernel would this vital interface be an issue.

3. The X Windows Xorg version is the killer. We link our X module into a library with the xorg version libraries of the target distributions. If the distro the customer wants to use has that or just below that- it usually works even if the distro is NOT POR. Of course, there are the times that the X has chnaged too much or has very limited scope on the library version linked. In those cases, the only way to make it work would be to back rev the X Org in the distribution to one that is supported. This may be a difficult to impossible to do. Support is also an issue- for non-POR distro use we do a "best effort" support. If we can reproduce an issue in a POR distro, then there is usually an easy path to a solution or workaround.

Hope this helps.

[GScot]

Kirk -

I'm surprised that you haven't received more responses to this thread. A successful port of EMGD for US15W to ubuntu 10.04 (lucid lynx) would greatly increase the usability of EMGD. As a point of reference, ubuntu 10.04 relies on XServer 1.7.6 by default. EMGD supports a Fedora (XServer 1.6) and a MeeGo (XServer 1.7.99??/1.8) build.

By upgrading the XServer on ubuntu 10.04 to version 1.8, the MeeGo EMGD 1.5.1 build can be installed, but it is not very functional nor stable, from my experience. But you probably know this, if you've read the massive thread @ http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1229345 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1229345, or just googled 'ubuntu emgd performance'. The Fedora EMGD 1.5.1 build can be installed on ubuntu 9.10, which uses XServer 1.6.4 by default. However, EMGD on ubuntu 9.10 is also unstable - the latest IEGD performs much better on ubuntu 9.10, by comparison.

I have not tried EMGD 1.5.2, but should I have any expectations that this will work any better for ubuntu? There was a promise on your forums that you would be moving EMGD to support XServer 1.9 in first quarter 2011, and therefore support the latest release of MeeGo (v1.1). As ubuntu 10.10 runs XServer 1.9, this would be a step in the right direction. It doesn't appear that EMGD 1.5.2 supports XServer 1.9. Moreover, it doesn't appear that EMGD currently is at the same level of usability as IEGD, despite Intel's insistence that EMGD is the driver set of choice for US15W designs.

You refer to a POR/roadmap for EMGD, but EMGD's current linux track record is very poor - the latest release of Intel's linux architecture of choice, MeeGo v.1.1 and its XServer 1.9, has left EMGD behind, from all appearances. If you've having difficulty keeping up w/MeeGo, I'll ask again, what are the chances of this working on ubuntu, especially for the US15W?

One last thought: All of your EMGD downloads, which incorporate the Windows and linux drivers in a single universal image, have come only as Windows self-extracting files. These downloads are useless on a linux machine w/o resorting to some sort of Windows emulation (wine). As such, how does this reflect on Intel's commitment to linux for EMGD?

regards,

gifford scott

DST

[GScot]

To answer my own questions, it looks as though EMGD 1.5.2 *does* support MeeGo 1.1 and X Server 1.9. Although the EMGD 1.5.2 release notes refer to MeeGo 1.1 support for 'testing enablement only' (who writes these things? ), I was able to successfully install EMGD 1.5.2 for the MeeGo 1.1 distro, on ubuntu 10.10/Maverick. And it appears to be stable.

regards,

gifford scott

DST

[AChea]

I'd like to say +1 to the Ubuntu stuff. I've got the 1.5.2 MeeGo 1.1 drivers working on Ubuntu 10.10 out of the box. 2D & 3D support seems great, and it drives my display at it's native 1366 x 768.

It was just over a year ago that I was talking to folks from both Intel and Image Tech about the terrible psb drivers at GDC. The floor staff were actually quite knowledgable about the situation and while they couldn't comment on specifics promised me that "something" was in the works.

Flash forward to now and I'm thrilled to see active development on the linux drivers. Can't wait until this stuff makes it into a package for the layman, but I'm content to do my homework and fiddle.

[Kirk_B_Intel]

(I tried to answer this a while back but I did not realize the EDC had not taken my update- sorry about that).

When Intel makes a release, it carries a promise of a high level of support and testing. As such if a distribution release does not line up with the O/S release we may opt to release support early and mark it as pre-production. We want to get a capability to you as quickly as possible. We may also have a Validation issue (like the need for the final version of the OS BEFORE releasing something as gold). We do only do releases on early code for stuff we know fundamentally works even if it does not have a "gold stamp" from our Validation team. So that "testing enablement" is there for a reason as the code is done (not alpha or beta) but not yet Gold.

Hope that helps...