[SM-Discuss] dell problem

Treeve Jelbert treeve at scarlet.be
Fri Dec 17 11:38:12 EST 2010


I have an old (5+ years) Dell notebook Inspiron 510m which was set up to dual 
boot Wxp and SMGL.

I have not used it very much for over a year. Recently I decided to upgrade 
sorcery and have encountered some problems.

linux-2.6.35 boots but then has problems with X.

In order to solve the X problem I needed KCM suport in the kernel, so I had to 
build the latest version.

linux-2.6.36.1 boots, displays various messages and then the screen goes 
blank. However the system is still running and I am able to log in using ssh.

I managed to extract the following from dmesg:

input: Video Bus as 
/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0A03:00/LNXVIDEO:00/input/input7
ACPI: Video Device [VID] (multi-head: yes  rom: no  post: no)
[Firmware Bug]: Duplicate ACPI video bus devices for the same VGA controller, 
please try
module parameter "video.allow_duplicates=1"if the current driver doesn't work.
ACPI Warning for \_SB_.PCI0.VID2._DOD: Return Package has no elements (empty)
(20100702/nspredef-456)
input: Video Bus as 
/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0A03:00/LNXVIDEO:01/input/input8
ACPI: Video Device [VID2] (multi-head: yes  rom: no  post: no)
Linux agpgart interface v0.103
agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: Intel 855GM Chipset
agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: detected 892K stolen memory
agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: AGP aperture is 128M @ 0xf0000000
Intel ICH 0000:00:1f.5: PCI INT B -> Link[LNKB] -> GSI 5 (level, low) -> IRQ 5
Intel ICH 0000:00:1f.5: setting latency timer to 64
intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 55534 usecs (2676 samples)
intel8x0: clocking to 48000
i915 0000:00:02.0: PCI INT A -> Link[LNKA] -> GSI 11 (level, low) -> IRQ 11
i915 0000:00:02.0: setting latency timer to 64
[drm] set up 0M of stolen space
composite sync not supported
vgaarb: device changed decodes:
PCI:0000:00:02.0,olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=io+mem:owns=io+mem
[drm] initialized overlay support
composite sync not supported
fb0: inteldrmfb frame buffer device
drm: registered panic notifier
[drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20080730 for 0000:00:02.0 on minor 0

# lsmod
i915                  249837  1 
drm_kms_helper         24245  1 i915
i2c_algo_bit            4111  1 i915
cfbcopyarea             2597  1 i915
i2c_core               14529  4 i915,drm_kms_helper,drm,i2c_algo_bit
intel_agp              23348  2 i915
video                   9667  1 i915
backlight               2908  1 video
output                  1200  1 video
cfbimgblt               1765  1 i915
cfbfillrect             2673  1 i915
rng_core                2626  0 

# lspci
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated 
Graphics Device (rev 02)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics 
Device (rev 02)

I tried the suggestion about video.allow_duplicates without success.

What is strange is that I was able to boot Linux Mint-9 and RIP-11.1, both of 
which have recent kernels.


Does anyone have any experience with wierd Dell bioses, or other suggestions.


Perhaps I should give up on smgl on this machine and install Mint.

Regards, Treeve



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