Penguin on 810 Boards

If you’ve tried to configure Linux on an Intel 810 chipset-based
motherboard, chances are that you’ve had problems doing so. 810 motherboards
have in-built sound and graphics that make it difficult to configure them under
Linux. In this article, we’ll see how you can do so by installing an X server
and ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) drivers to communicate with the
i810’s in-built graphics and sound cards respectively. We did it by using Red
Hat 6.2 Linux from our June 2000 CD and installing it on an Azza 810DTC
motherboard. The accompanying CD also contains the necessary software.

X Window on i810

This can be configured either when you install Linux for the first time or on
an already running Linux system. During installation, Linux will detect a
generic SVGA graphics card and will prompt you to select a monitor model. After
this, you’ll be prompted for the amount of memory the graphics card has.
Select 1 MB and select graphics card clockchip to be ‘No Clockchip’. Don’t
try to probe or test any of the settings at any stage and skip them all.

If you have already installed Linux, log in as root and run ‘Xconfigurator’.
This time Linux will detect an ‘Intel Corporation | 82810 CGC’ graphics
card. Next select your monitor model and as before don’t probe at any stage.

Linux uses a separate X server for each graphics chipset, and the 810 is no
exception. It’s called XFCom-i810, and we’ve provided its RPM XFCom-i810 on
this month’s CD. Mount the CD and change to the directory /cdrom/linux/i810
graphics drivers and install the RPM as:

mount /mnt/cdrom

cd "/mnt/cdrom/cdrom/Linux/i810 graphics drivers"

rpm -ivh XFCom*

This only installs the X server. You also need to compile support for it in
the Linux kernel. This involves keying in two commands, which you have to issue
from the same directory.

rpm –rebuild I810Gtt*.rpm

rpm -ivh /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/I810Gtt*.rpm –force

Next open the file XF86Config found in /etc/X11 using a text editor like Vi
or Joe. This file is divided into sections that are distinguished by the
keywords ‘Section’ and ‘EndSection’. All similar sections are grouped in
the same place under headings like ‘Files section’ and ‘Server flags
section’. Go to the ‘Graphics devices section’ and add the following
lines:

Section "Device"

Identifier "i810"

EndSection

Next go to the ‘Screen’ section and remove all sections (if any) under it
containing the following line:

Driver "svga"

Now add the following lines:

Section "Screen"

Driver "svga"

Device "i810"

Monitor ""

Subsection "Display"

Depth 16

Modes "800x600"

ViewPort 0 0

EndSubsection

Subsection "Display"

Depth 24

Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

ViewPort 0 0

EndSubsection

EndSection

In the fourth line substitute with the monitor
identifier of your monitor. To find this, go to the heading ‘Monitor’
section and you will see a line as below.

Identifier ""

For example, we used a Samtron monitor, and the line read:

Identifier "Samtron 5E/5ME"

In this case the line in the ‘Screen’ section should be modified as:

Monitor " Samtron 5E/5ME "

Note that here we have specified resolutions of 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768
with color depths 16 and 24. You can add more such sub-sections for customized
configuration. By default, the X server would start with the first values in the
first subsection. In our case issuing ‘startx’ command would start the X
server at a resolution of 800x600 at 16-bit color depth. If your monitor
supports higher resolutions, you can add them in the file. However, you must
never add a resolution that your monitor doesn’t support.

Save the file and issue the following command on the Linux console.

ln —sf /usr/X11R6/bin/XFCom_i810 /etc/X11/X

That’s it. Now you can start X Window using the ‘startx’ command.