Guide to Get the Best Performace from the GMA 500

[NeonRush]

You'll have to scan a mirror if you want links to the debs. I'd like to thank Jolicloud for all their work... However... They don't even host a forum, and call me old fashioned, but I don't tweet. I've ran their pre-beta and things are looking very promising, but samba sucks. BAD! Can't even connect to the samba share on my Ubuntu server. So yeah, they aren't being very transparent at this stage.

So for now I'm testing the Jolicloud kernel in Karmic. I own an EEE PC 1101HA. Jolicloud is great on the graphics end, Karmic handles my networking needs. But, and this is a big but, Karmic has a horrible atheros implementation. Joli worked without a hitch. Hopefully the two together will be a good match. Fill you in soon.

[NeonRush]

IT WORKS!!!! HA HA HA (evil laugh)

1386 fps in glxgears
AND
40% strength on wifi while in a detached garage and the router is in a basement over 30 meters away. I'm feeling good!

Okay, this wasn't all that straightforward so I'm going to recap my process (props go out to those that came before me):

Installed Karmic on Asus EEE PC 1101ha

1. Added:

deb http://apt.jolicloud.org robby main directory jolicloud

to repositories in synaptic.

2. Run a full update/upgrade in synaptic. Probably not needed but it didn't hurt I'm sure.

3. Run from console:

sudo aptitude install -R jolicloud-poulsbo
sudo aptitude install -R linux-image-jolicloud linux-image-jolicloud-atom
sudo /etc/jolicloud-netbook-config.d/poulsbo.sh

4. Because grub was failing to load after a reboot I'd suggest this next step if you're having problems. Edit /etc/default/grub
Go down to the line that looks like this:

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

Uncomment the entry so it looks like this:

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

5. Now edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf so it looks like this:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "GMA500"
        Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
        Option "DRI" "on"
        Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
        Option "IgnoreACPI" "yes"
        Driver "psb"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Mode    0666
EndSection

6. From terminal, run

sudo update-grub

7. Reboot

Now it looks like I may have an Ubuntu install that I can use for a while. Until tinkering makes me break it again. Have fun everyone!

[Mattia]

IT WORKS!!!! HA HA HA (evil laugh)

1386 fps in glxgears
AND
40% strength on wifi while in a detached garage and the router is in a basement over 30 meters away. I'm feeling good!

Okay, this wasn't all that straightforward so I'm going to recap my process (props go out to those that came before me):

Installed Karmic on Asus EEE PC 1101ha

1. Added:

deb http://apt.jolicloud.org robby main directory jolicloud

to repositories in synaptic.

2. Run a full update/upgrade in synaptic. Probably not needed but it didn't hurt I'm sure.

3. Run from console:

sudo aptitude install -R jolicloud-poulsbo
sudo aptitude install -R linux-image-jolicloud linux-image-jolicloud-atom
sudo /etc/jolicloud-netbook-config.d/poulsbo.sh

4. Because grub was failing to load after a reboot I'd suggest this next step if you're having problems. Edit /etc/default/grub
Go down to the line that looks like this:

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

Uncomment the entry so it looks like this:

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

5. Now edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf so it looks like this:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "GMA500"
        Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
        Option "DRI" "on"
        Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
        Option "IgnoreACPI" "yes"
        Driver "psb"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Mode    0666
EndSection

6. From terminal, run

sudo update-grub

7. Reboot

Now it looks like I may have an Ubuntu install that I can use for a while. Until tinkering makes me break it again. Have fun everyone!

I had not problem with grub and the jolicloud script configured xorg automaticalli.

[jbernardo]

I downloaded all the packages and installed them on my LPIA karmic. In the end, the performance was the same I get with Lucazade's script, and with the backports modules my wifi works well, so since the eee-laptop module doesn't load with jolicloud's kernel, I went back to regular karmic.

[michael37]

I installed full jolicloud just to see what it looks like. Having PSB video driver working during installation is pleasant, but is not that important after all. Graphics performance is the same. Full screen gnome terminal uses 100% CPU in Xorg process for some reason. Neither jolicloud nor UNR use Dell Mini 12 screen real estate intelligently. Pidgin is poorly integrated. Prism-based apps, like Gmail, are cute, but general purpose browser does just fine. In fact, I would prefer Gmail app to be based on Webkit/v8 javascript, not XULrunner.

The only thing that I liked is that brightness keys worked on my Dell Mini 12 in jolicloud out of box. They do not work in Karmic. See more info in this thread which was on dev forum, continued in this active thread. Might be jaunty vs karmic issue regarding hal deprecation.

[michael37]

In case people haven't been tracking, here are latest updates on the next gen driver for GMA 500.

We Have Poulsbo Hardware, But No Driver

Also, Karmic LPIA will be my last netbook running LPIA. News here.

[Udibuntu]

For playing video clips, check how to build mplayer with vaapi support - using the scripts from here I can generate a mplayer that lets me view 1080p flawlessly. You also need to first build libva from here, and do a "sudo apt-get build-dep mplayer" to get all dependencies in place. I also remember I had to link one of the psb libs to another place, but can't remember now. In any case, there are a couple of threads in ubuntu forums explaining how to do it.

jbernardo, have tried to implement this but aahhh... maybe I'm too dumb to do this...I found all kinds of references to this method but I don't have a clue how to actually do it - which package to download, how to open the folder etc..

I'd appreciate an idiot proof walk-through here, though I'll understand if my request is too much...

[michael37]

jbernardo, have tried to implement this but aahhh... maybe I'm too dumb to do this...I found all kinds of references to this method but I don't have a clue how to actually do it - which package to download, how to open the folder etc..

I'd appreciate an idiot proof walk-through here, though I'll understand if my request is too much...

I totally missed this part of the thread.

So... has anyone tried using Fit-PC kernel and mplayer-vaapi and libva packages? Supposedly it fully works with Atom/Poulsbo. Would be much sweeter than building mplayer-vaapi each time manually.

Repository (Jaunty, Karmic)
http://fit-pc2.com/download/ubuntu/dists
Wiki (Jaunty)
http://fit-pc2.com/wiki/index.php?ti...ntu_on_fit-PC2

Karmic seems to be missing libdrm debs, so not sure if it actually works.

UDPATE: I just tries installing these .debs and almost destroyed my computer. This stuff is totally non-compatible with ubuntu-mobile stuff (which is really jaunty packages on top of karmic). Don't do it.

[Udibuntu]

Karmic seems to be missing libdrm debs, so not sure if it actually works.

UDPATE: I just tries installing these .debs and almost destroyed my computer. This stuff is totally non-compatible with ubuntu-mobile stuff (which is really jaunty packages on top of karmic). Don't do it.

Thanks Michael, I hope your computer is OK...

I'm using 9.10 desktop, will I destroy my AAO 751 using this? If it's OK, then how do I add the missing libdrm debs?

Udi

[bodhi.zazen]

This script on this wiki page works :

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupp...eoCardsPoulsbo

It modifies config files, so after running it once I edited out the parts that edit config files.

I would modify the script with a few if statements