Upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala breaks X (xorg) on intel driver on 945G chipset

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Upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala breaks X (xorg) on intel driver on 945G chipset

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Posted by Admin • Monday, November 2. 2009 • Category: Linux

After upgrading my IBM desktop with "82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller" X stopped working entirely, regardless of any changes to xorg.conf. Running startx manually revealed an error like this:

(EE) Failed to load module "i810" (module does not exist, 0)
(EE) open /dev/fb0: No such file or directory
(EE) intel(0): [drm] Failed to open DRM device for : No such file or directory
(EE) intel(0): Failed to become DRM master.

Took me a little while to figure out how to get me my machine back:

Seems that the problem is with the latest intel driver: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu2

Apparently downgrading to an older intel driver solves the issue. I picked the latest version that Jaunty used: 2:2.6.3-0ubuntu9.3 . I had to figure out how to properly downgrade an .deb package. Downloading an older version and installing with 'dpkg -i' works, but apt immediately wants to fix this "inconsistency" by upgrading again to the broken version. Using apt properly is certainly better!

But the solution boils down to:

Download the .deb file from https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/2:2.6.3-0ubuntu9.3 (click on the appropriate build)
Install it:
dpkg -i xserver-xorg-video-intel_2.6.3-0ubuntu9.3_i386.deb
Convince apt that it's OK and its database has not been compromised:
sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-intel=2:2.6.3-0ubuntu9.3
Convince apt that it should not upgrade to the broken version:
echo "xserver-xorg-video-intel hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections
Check that it won't upgrade it : apt-get -s upgrade

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Argyle on 2009-11-12 06:46:
I had a similar problem, and your solution worked for me. I opened a bug report on launchpad and posted this work-around there, if you're interested:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/471844
Gary on 2010-02-13 07:50:
How would I go about doing this from a command line for the SiS driver?
Admin on 2010-02-13 13:09:
I'll assume that you are using xserver-xorg-video-sis and that you are convinced that the current version (1:0.10.1-2) is problematic and you want to try an earlier version.

To figure this out you would have run: aptitude search xorg-video # to get a list of drivers. You said sis, so I'll assume it's -sis apt-cache show xserver-xorg-video-sis # to show version and info

Now, you'd like to see what earlier versions are available. You browse on to http://packages.ubuntu.com, do a simple search and wind up on this page: http://packages.ubuntu.com/karmic/xserver-xorg-video-sis

You think that perhaps jaunty's version may work for you, so you click jaunty and wind up here: http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/xserver-xorg-video-sis

You select your arch (i386/x64) and download a package file. The rest is the same as the original instructions, though the names change to -sis obviously.
Python on 2010-04-14 05:21:
I was trying to install the ubuntu in the unallocated memory created from gparted, windowsxp (primary os). Ubuntu thows up Failed to load module "i810" (module does not exist, 0) and prompts me for login and password. I haven' t seen the installation done yet. Surprised it seeks login password, i don't have the password for winxp too.

I haven't seen ubuntu creating swap memory and file system of linux for the unallocated memory.

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