Ubuntu Wiki

This page details support for the Intel GMA500 "Poulsbo" video hardware in various Ubuntu releases. The table below shows the current status of the driver.

Drivers installation

Drivers are available in the Gma500 PPA repository for Maverick, Lucid and Karmic.

Open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa && sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d poulsbo-config

reboot for the changes to take effect.

This PPA repository also ships mplayer, gnome-mplayer and vlc (currently vlc has still some issues and does not always work) with enabled vaapi backend. You can install these via the package manager of your choice.

Remember to perform after a version upgrade the commands in the terminal again to update to the gma500 packages matching your Ubuntu version.

An unofficial Lucid iso image with gma500 support and mplayer-vaapi is available for downloading over bittorrent. torrent link

You can also choose from alternative drivers than the PSB drivers, all having different advantages and disadvantages over the others. These drivers are: fbdev, iegd and emgd. No wiki pages concerning thes drivers are available. In general the PSB drivers are best supported at this moment in performance, compatibility and features.

Known issues and tweaks

Feedback

When applying any tweaks from below we kindly request you to provide feedback concerning the results from the chosen tweaks on your laptop. Please fill out this form (link will be published tomorrow) to send your findings to the gma500 team.

Suspend

Temporary workaround (Lucid and Karmic):

sudo mv /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/99video /usr/lib/pm-utils/99video

or use the following workaround (Lucid and Karmic):

sudo apt-get purge vbetool && sudo apt-get install uswsusp

and suspend using:

sudo s2ram --force

to make this permanent:

sudo gedit /etc/pm/config.d/00sleep_module

and set:

SLEEP_MODULE="uswsusp"

sudo gedit /etc/pm/config/defaults

and add:

S2RAM_OPTS="--force"
QUIRK_NONE="true"

Brightness hotkeys

Temporary workaround (Maverick, Lucid and Karmic):

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

add the following parameters to grub configuation:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor"

sudo update-grub

Compiz

Temporary workaround (Maverick and Lucid):

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and add the following option:

Option "ExaNoComposite" "true"

* install this updated poulsbo-config package: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338581/poulsbo/poulsbo-config_0.1.2%7E1004um3_all.deb

* install compiz

Flash plugin replacement for Firefox

Temporary workaround (Maverick and Lucid):

* install gnome-mplayer and gecko-mediaplayer

* tune gnome-mplayer settings like the following screenshots:

http://lukaszklich.pl/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/vaapi_output.png

http://lukaszklich.pl/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/vaapi_va.png

(This should already be automatically done by the gnome-mplayer package from the gma500 repository)

* install this firefox addons: http://flvideoreplacer-extension.blogspot.com/

Tweaks that are deprecated

Kernel mode setting

KMS can be activated if you are using Lucid. On Maverick this tweak can give serious problems. It prevents the system from correctly shutting down which can result in data loss. If you still want to enable KMS, paste the following command:

echo "psb
drm_psb" | sudo tee -a /etc/initramfs-tools/modules && sudo update-initramfs -u

In Maverick due to an issue during shutdown we added "no_fb=1" to /etc/modprobe.d/poulsbo.conf. This settings fix shutdown but unfortunately conflicts with KMS.

Intrepid (8.10) and Jaunty (9.04)

The drivers for the Poulsbo chipset are shipped in the ubuntu-mobile PPA.

Add the ubuntu-mobile PPA

Edit a file called /etc/apt/sources.list/psb.list, and add the following line to it, for Intrepid: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main for Jaunty: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

You may also wish to add the key to the keyring by following the instructions here.

Which kernel are you running?

If you are using a kernel that you have compiled yourself, or are not using the latest kernel provided by either Intrepid or Jaunty, install the psb-kernel-source package (and make sure the headers for your kernel are available!) and then remove psb-modules.

Install packages

Install poulsbo-driver-2d if you only require 2D, and poulsbo-driver-3d if you also require 3D acceleration to work. Make sure your user is a member of the video group before using 3D.

Hardy (8.04)

The Poulsbo hardware is not supported in the community version of Ubuntu. However, it is reputed to "just work" on Hardy version shipped by a netbook manufacturer.

For example, the support for GMA 500 hardware by Dell Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 is provided by the following repository

deb http://dell-mini.archive.canonical.com/updates hardy-dell-mini public

Contribution

The Ubuntu community is a great example of free software community in action, and is arguable one of the greatest examples of free software community in the world. To make Ubuntu better, You would like to take a look on new project Intel GMA500 'Poulsbo' and provide any help.

Common problems

X doesn't start

Double check that the psb kernel module can be loaded into the running kernel by running modprobe psb.

3D Graphics (OpenGL) does not work after suspend and resume

This is a known bug with psb kernel driver. Due to partial close nature of the driver, because Intel has not released an open source driver, the bug fix is currently no available. There are reports² that a new driver will be available shortly.

Additional Reading

Why GMA 500 hardware doesn't work out of the box? Read "How To Kick Your Friends in the Face: GMA500" by Shawn Powers and the Intel "apology" "Blaming Intel for how the world is" by Henry Kingman

Other problems?

If you're still having problems, please mail ubuntu-mobile@lists.ubuntu.com, and do not submit bug reports.