[sf-lug] Intel graphics chipsets (was /firmware/radeon)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting The Doctor (drwho at virtadpt.net):

> Here's the output from a machine that does have an Intel video chipset, to give an idea of what it might look like:
> 
> [drwho at windbringer ~]$ lspci | grep VGA | awk '{print $1}' | xargs lspci -v -s
> 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
> 	Subsystem: Dell Device 05fe
> 	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 36
> 	Memory at f7400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
> 	Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
> 	I/O ports at f000 [size=64]
> 	Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
> 	Capabilities: <access denied>
> 	Kernel driver in use: i915
> 	Kernel modules: i915

Yeah, still pretty vague, isn't it?  

Back in the middle to late '90s, when I investigated Linux compatibility
of new computers for a living[1], my main tools were these, run from a
live-CD distro (usually sidux, which is now aptosid):

lspci  (with -v and such)
lsusb
dmidecode
dmesg | more
lsmod
less /var/log/X*.log

That was usually more than sufficient, if you read carefully and did a
bit of homework.  E.g., back then, reading the lspci output would tell
you what northbridge and southbridge chips comprised the heart of the
motherboard, and sometimes (in the case of Intel video) Web-searching
the northbridge chip and the computer model number sufficed to tell you
the exact Intel graphics model.

Often, just Web-searching the computer model plus 'video chipset' or
'graphics chipset' got you the answer, too.

I don't think lshw was around, then, but I always found its
(ridiculously verbose) output redundant to information from the other
tools.


BTW, is that a Dell XPS 15 Touch 9530 laptop -- or something similar?

It is often not _sufficient_ to pay attention only to the lspci output
section with the string 'VGA' in it, because some machines just are more
complex than that.  The Dell XPS 15 Touch 9530 laptop is a case in
point.  Yes, 'lspci' output does include this line:

  00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)

However, it also includes this one:

  02:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 750M] (rev ff)

This particular laptop has _both_ Intel and Nvidia graphics.
  o  Intel HD Graphics 4600 ('Haswell' architecture, thus furnishing 
     video via a 'GT2' CPU-integrated GPU)
  o  NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2GB GDDR5

How does one get from 'Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor
Integrated Graphics Controller' to 'Intel HD Graphics 4600'?  Good
question.  In this case, I know that because I found a Web page that
says that (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Dell_XPS_15_Touch_9530), and did
some following of links to other places.

Otherwise, gee, can't remember.  Probably persistence, poking around,
Web-searching, and the desire to impress one's boss.  ;->


[1] My employer was continually shipped new demo models of servers,
workstations, and laptops by major manufacturers, and I took them into a
lab and wrote reports on how compatible they were with the RHEL, SLES,
and Solaris versions of the day.  I got pretty good at it, and got to
play with all the new toys.