[i810e] gnome-panel not drawn on i810 Intel Chipset

[David Millard]

Binary package hint: xorg

After a fresh install of OEM mode Lucid Ubuntu, gnome-panels don't appear. They are still listed as running, and still take up screen real estate, but do not appear. The machine has a i810 chipset, part of the xserver-xorg-video-intel package.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: xorg 1:7.5+5ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-24.39-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Aug 8 15:11:25 2010
DkmsStatus: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100429)
Lsusb: Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
MachineType: Dell Computer Corporation OptiPlex GX110
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-generic root=UUID=f7e875b8-3b6f-479e-8c8f-0cd143786746 ro quiet splash NoDRI
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xorg
dmi.bios.date: 01/28/2000
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Computer Corporation
dmi.bios.version: A02
dmi.board.name: OptiPlex GX110
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Computer Corporation
dmi.chassis.type: 2
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Computer Corporation
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellComputerCorporation:bvrA02:bd01/28/2000:svnDellComputerCorporation:pnOptiPlexGX110:pvr:rvnDellComputerCorporation:rnOptiPlexGX110:rvr:cvnDellComputerCorporation:ct2:cvr:
dmi.product.name: OptiPlex GX110
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Computer Corporation
glxinfo: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: lucid
 architecture: i686
 kernel: 2.6.32-24-generic

[lspci]
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82810E DC-133 (CGC) Chipset Graphics Controller [8086:7125] (rev 03)
     Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:00b4]

[Brian Pitts (bpitts)]

I'll add that at Free IT Athens we have a couple dozen of these machines and can reliably reproduce the problem. The panels simply don't appear when using the integrated intel video. Add a discrete video card and the panels appear fine. It's not a resolution problem, because the mouse pointer stops at the edge of the monitors. We can use alt-f2 to run programs, and they display without any problems.

In dmesg you'll see

[ 26.436034] [drm:drm_reclaim_locked_buffers] *ERROR* reclaim_buffers_locked() deadlock. Please rework this
[ 26.436046] driver to use reclaim_buffers_idlelocked() instead.
[ 26.436050] I will go on reclaiming the buffers anyway.

I don't know if this is related.

[Brian Pitts (bpitts)]

Tonight we realized that the panel is present, because you can press alt-f1 to drop down the menu. The menu appears as if the panel is right above the edge of the monitor. I've attached a photograph to illustrate this.

We've seen this happen on 3 different models of computers (including the one in the original bug report) and 3 different monitors. The only common factor we've identified so far is that they all have 82810E DC-133 graphics.

[Brian Pitts (bpitts)]

This still occurs in Ubuntu 10.10. Sometimes, after running 'pkill gnome-panel' the panels will appear.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi, sorry you had trouble getting Ubuntu working on your 8xx chip. I'd like to have you re-test against natty and if it's still not working right, please file a bug upstream at bugs.freedesktop.org against Xorg / Intel.

The intel driver seems to not get tested well against the 8xx chips and we've seen lots of regressions and mis-features. Unfortunately the driver code seems to be rather fragile as well, so we've found we cannot effectively patch and maintain the driver at the distro level, and thus are no longer providing development support, nor will be backporting fixes to older Ubuntu releases. You may still be able to get some technical support from places like http://askubuntu.com and similar to work around problems.