Intel couldn't allocate video memory

[Matthew Woerly]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-intel

After some updates to Karmic today I had a bunch of problems...
First the disk was telling me the last mount time was in the future, and needed to do a disk check.
I'm not sure if that caused my graphics problem or not...
But once I got past that, X would not start.
I'm attaching the log. It says something about not being able to allocate video memory.
It did this on multiple boots, and gave the same thing when I ran startx.

[Riccardo Poli (rpoli)]

I can confirm that I've had the same sort of problem on my laptop a few minutes ago, immediately after an update (I do updates every day). I get a black screen. Even recovery mode did not help. Had to revert back to the previous kernel in recovery mode to be able to even get a plain text login. Machine totally unusable.

[Matthew Woerly (nattgew)]

Thanks for your comment. Are you using Intel, too? Could you provide some log info?

I don't get a black screen, it goes black and then changes to the console with boot output. I was able to Ctrl+Alt+F1 and login, but startx gave me the same thing.

[Riccardo Poli (rpoli)]

Yes, I'm using Intel. This morning (UK time) I checked for updates and found there were some. After installing them I get exactly the same behaviour as you. (With last night's state I could not use CTRL+ALT+Fn to get console login. (I had to use an older kernel in recovery mode.) However, as for you, startx, fails on my machine.

[Matthew Woerly (nattgew)]

Thanks for your info. I'll change it to confirmed, then. I'm reinstalling right now, and I'll see what the latest updates do...

[Matthew Woerly (nattgew)]

Well I installed from Alpha 4 and then installed all of the updates. I rebooted and it gave me no problems yet... we'll see how it does later.

Could you post your
lspci | grep VGA
and your Xorg.0.log of the problem?

[Matthew Woerly (nattgew)]

Intel 2.8.1-1ubuntu1
Kernel 2.6.31.10.21
All is well now... not sure what went wrong before...

[Riccardo Poli (rpoli)]

Hi,

here is my lspci | grep VGA

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML
Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)

I've kept installing upgrades and now I have managed to find one
configuration where the system boots up correctly with graphics and all.
I'll explain.

My /boot/grub/menu.lst includes the following

title Ubuntu karmic (development branch), kernel 2.6.31-10-generic
uuid efd4ec5c-5563-4310-906a-0b13ae8d83d4
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-10

[Matthew Woerly (nattgew)]

That's interesting, here's mine
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)

What is it about that configuration that makes it work?
I'm using grub2, still no problems yet.

[Riccardo Poli (rpoli)]

With last night updates the problem has gone. These included the new
splash screen. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
Anyway, problem solved.

Many thanks

Riccardo

On Thu, 2009-09-17 at 18:05 +0100, Nattgew wrote:
> That's interesting, here's mine
> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
>
> What is it about that configuration that makes it work?
> I'm using grub2, still no problems yet.
>

[Matthew Woerly (nattgew)]

Good to know we're both back in business... I guess this bug is gone.