[Intel GMA500] Visual glitches and crash (Maverick and Natty)

[Lucazade]

Unity displays only the wallpaper and moving mouse pointer it crashes.
I have launched "unity -p" from terminal to get some debug info, attached there is a log.

I'll add other details if needed.

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

$ sudo lshw -C display
  *-display
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: System Controller Hub (SCH Poulsbo) Graphics Controller
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 07
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=psb latency=0
       resources: irq:16 memory:b0080000-b00fffff ioport:1800(size=8) memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:b0000000-b003ffff

$ glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.2
server glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap,
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
    GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control,
    GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer,
    GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group
client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI
client glx version string: 1.4
client glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context,
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
    GLX_MESA_swap_control, GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_OML_sync_control,
    GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGI_video_sync,
    GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer,
    GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap,
    GLX_INTEL_swap_event
GLX version: 1.2
GLX extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context,
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
    GLX_MESA_swap_control, GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGI_make_current_read,
    GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGI_video_sync, GLX_SGIS_multisample,
    GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group
OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) GMA500 20081116 - 5.0.1.0046 x86/MMX/SSE2
OpenGL version string: 2.0 Mesa 7.4
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.10
OpenGL extensions:
    GL_ARB_depth_texture, GL_ARB_draw_buffers, GL_ARB_fragment_program,
    GL_ARB_fragment_shader, GL_ARB_multisample, GL_ARB_multitexture,
    GL_ARB_occlusion_query, GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object,
    GL_ARB_point_parameters, GL_ARB_point_sprite, GL_ARB_shader_objects,
    GL_ARB_shading_language_100, GL_ARB_shadow, GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp,
    GL_ARB_texture_compression, GL_ARB_texture_cube_map,
    GL_ARB_texture_env_add, GL_ARB_texture_env_combine,
    GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar, GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3,
    GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two,
    GL_ARB_texture_rectangle, GL_ARB_transpose_matrix,
    GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object, GL_ARB_vertex_program, GL_ARB_vertex_shader,
    GL_ARB_window_pos, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_bgra, GL_EXT_blend_color,
    GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate, GL_EXT_blend_func_separate,
    GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract, GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint,
    GL_EXT_cull_vertex, GL_EXT_compiled_vertex...

[simplygades (simplygades-deactivatedaccount)]

Same here both under Maverick and Natty on an Acer AO751 with Intel GMA 500 chip. If there's somethin I need to add please tell me.

[sindikat (sindikat)]

Same here. Asus EeePC 1201HA with GMA500. I'm still using Ubuntu 9.10 because of problems with that chip. Hoped that Unity solve my problems, but not.

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

I would add Unity doesn't work also using new EMGD drivers
instead of old PSB drivers.
https://launchpad.net/~lucazade/+archive/emgd

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

attached glxinfo and lshw -C display logs

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

attached Unity crash using EMGD drivers

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

Using Unity 3.2.0-0ubuntu3 I get only an invisible sidebar, not clickable and not working.
Attached there is a debug log

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

Attached also a screenshot (sometimes titlebar is visible, sometimes not!)

[Neil J. Patel (njpatel)]

I'm not sure whether we can support Poulsbo due to the drivers not providing the features that we need. That said, we need to investigate this more thoroughly before deciding the best course of action. Jay, could you please check and see whether this chipset provides what we need to run Unity (with the Linux drivers).

[Jay Taoko (jaytaoko)]

The required OpenGL features seems to be there. I never had such a graphics chipset in hand to evaluate the nature of the graphics issues. It would be best to have the hardware so I see what we can do to enable Unity on it.

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

This bug could be related to another Compiz 0.9.2 bug:
Compiz decoration glitches (Intel GMA500)

https://bugs.launchpad.net/gma500/+bug/689805

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

Bug report using apport
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/693547

[tista (tista)]

Hi.
I'm testing emgd driver on Natty Alpha-1 with 2.6.35.4 kernel. and uploading my .xsession-errors.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

"I'm not sure whether we can support Poulsbo due to the drivers not providing the features that we need."

Poulsbo also is not being actively supported by its vendor any longer, and since its 3D component is closed source proprietary, that limits the support that can be done at the distro level. It's questionable how much general developer time is worth investing into issues related to this driver (although it could make sense for oem projects).

EMGD I gather requires xserver 1.8, which we did not package for any ubuntu release. There might be a PPA around with it. I'm not sure short of retrograding our xserver back to 1.8 that we can provide this driver for ubuntu. Hopefully this time Intel will actively support EMGD and put out a release for xserver 1.9 or 1.10 that we can use.

[David Barth (dbarth)]

GMA500 doesn't qualify for the kind of HW requirements we defined for Unity. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopExperienceTeam/UnityHardwareRequirements for reference.

So, with that said, I think we can drop this bug off the list.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

As per comments #15 and #16 I'm closing bug as won't fix... we know it is an issue but the Ubuntu-X team does not have plans to enable it for natty.

Regarding EMGD, since we will be shipping and supporting xserver 1.10 rather than 1.8, we're not going to be able to easily ship that at this time. There might be some way to jury rig it, but for now I think we'll wait and see if either an 1.10 compatible version is released by Intel or Canonical runs into OEM customer requirements for it.

For now, I'd encourage maintaining it in a community PPA. (If you'd prefer to make it a sub-ppa of xorg-edgers that can be arranged, just catch Sarvatt or myself on IRC). If anyone figures out a way to get it working under stock natty xserver and kernel, then that might be something we could consider for Ubuntu.

[Lucazade (lucazade)]

Thanks Bryce for clarifications
I'll wait for a new EMGD release to try out Unity.. in the meanwhile I'm using Unity 2D based on Qt and works very well.
As soon as I have some info on new drivers I'll knock to IRC channel! :)