[Openchrome-users] How-To: VN896 working well on a laptop widescreen 1280x800

[nelo_bsb]

How-To: VN896 working well on a laptop widescreen 1280x800
Hello people,

Here is a small guide to help people to get the opencrome driver working with the Via VN896 chip (using the experimental VN896 branch).

How about post it at the wiki documentation pages??

My Hardware is:
 - Brazillian Positivo V43 laptop
 - Via VT8237A chipset with VN896 video
 - LCD Screen Panel 1280x800

Software:
 - Mandriva Linux 2008 RC1 with default options

With the openchrome driver (specific VN896 version) I got these issues:
 - Crash when coming back from suspend to ram
But I got all others things working (including suspend to disk - hibernating), and a very good DVD/Video playback.
No 3D to have Beryl or Compiz, but this I think is a hardware limitation.


Here is a how-to guide to use the openchrome VN896 experimental driver:

First, backup your actual drivers (if it works on some how - there no need to backup something thats doesn't works)

Do this commands as super user:

cp /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via_drv.so /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via_original_drv.so
cp /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via_drv.la /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via_original_drv.la


Then I suggest to remove the package x11-driver-video-via using your package manager, so when this package becames updated at the repositories the driver compiled  by you will be replaced.
The Mandriva Linux repositories have a x11-driver-video-openchrome, but since the driver from here compiles at the name of "via" there will be no conflict with this package.
Still at the package manager, check if the following packages are installed:

subversion
gcc
automake
libtool
libxvmc1-devel (libxvmc-dev on ubuntu)
libxorg-x11-devel (xserver-xorg-dev onubuntu)
libdrm-devel (libdrm-dev on ubuntu)
libmesagl1-devel (libgl1-mesa-dev on ubuntu)


At Ubuntu, this can be done with the following commands at super user:

apt-get build-dep xserver-xorg-video-via
apt-get install subversion autoconf automake1.9 libtool


Finnaly, as the superuser, at any directory (I suggest /root) peform the following commands:

mkdir openchrome
cd openchrome
svn co http://svn.openchrome.org/svn/branches/vn896_branch
sh autogen.sh
make
make install


This will install via_drv.so to /usr/local/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/.
In order to use it, you need to copy it to /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/.
Here is how to do that (as superuser):

cp /usr/local/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/via*  /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/


This is the directories used by Mandriva Linux - it may be different on some distributions.

To have it working on my laptop I have to use the "ForcePanel" "true" option at the xorg.conf file. Without that the image was always sent to the VGA out.
Other option I must use is the "SWCursor", to have the mouse cursor work well.

I'm attaching my xorg.conf file - Its otimized for the Brazilian Positivo V43 laptop, but the section "modules" and "device" is good for all that uses VN896.

I hope I may help some people here...

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