Ubuntu Wiki

This page details support for the Intel GMA500 "Poulsbo" video hardware in various Ubuntu releases. The table below shows the current status of the driver.

Lucid (10.04)

An unofficial iso image with gma500 support and mplayer-vaapi is available for downloading over bittorrent.

Thanks lucazade! torrent link

Visit the gma500 thread on ubuntuforums.org for more info and support.

If you wish to use the official Ubuntu 10.04 iso, follow the steps below.

Open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa && sudo apt-get update

this command will add 'GMA500 PPA' repository and update database

sudo apt-get install poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d poulsbo-config

reboot for the changes to take effect.

Notes:

• Compiz doesn't work and will be removed.
• Xv video output doesn't work (Totem, webcam, skype, etc). Use mplayer-vaapi to get decent video playback.

• On Sony Vaio add the following workaround:

  sudo nano /etc/default/grub

  find correct line and update to below

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash mem=1900mb nohz=off"

  Then update your grub config

  sudo update-grub

• On Acer 751h to fix battery status add to session startup:

  cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info

Karmic (9.10)

Open a terminal and type:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa && sudo apt-get update

this command will add 'GMA500 PPA' repository and update database

sudo apt-get install poulsbo-config poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d psb-firmware psb-kernel-headers psb-kernel-source

edit your xorg.conf (if it doesn't exist, the command below will create it)

gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and paste in the following:

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "GMA500"
        Driver          "psb"
        Option          "IgnoreACPI" "true"
        Option          "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
        Mode    0666
EndSection

reboot for the changes to take effect.

Intrepid (8.10) and Jaunty (9.04)

The drivers for the Poulsbo chipset are shipped in the ubuntu-mobile PPA.

Add the ubuntu-mobile PPA

Edit a file called /etc/apt/sources.list/psb.list, and add the following line to it: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu YOUR RELEASE HERE main

You may also wish to add the key to the keyring by following the instructions here.

Which kernel are you running?

If you are using a kernel that you have compiled yourself, or are not using the latest kernel provided by either Intrepid or Jaunty, install the psb-kernel-source package (and make sure the headers for your kernel are available!) and then remove psb-modules.

Install packages

Install poulsbo-driver-2d if you only require 2D, and poulsbo-driver-3d if you also require 3D acceleration to work. Make sure your user is a member of the video group before using 3D.

Hardy (8.04)

The Poulsbo hardware is not supported in the community version of Ubuntu. However, it is reputed to "just work" on Hardy version shipped by a netbook manufacturer.

For example, the support for GMA 500 hardware by Dell Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 is provided by the following repository

deb http://dell-mini.archive.canonical.com/updates hardy-dell-mini public

Contribution

The Ubuntu community is a great example of free software community in action, and is arguable one of the greatest examples of free software community in the world. To make Ubuntu better, You would like to take a look on new project Intel GMA500 'Poulsbo' and provide any help.

Common problems

X doesn't start

Double check that the psb kernel module can be loaded into the running kernel by running modprobe psb.

3D Graphics (OpenGL) does not work after suspend and resume

This is a known bug with psb kernel driver. Due to partial close nature of the driver, because Intel has not released an open source driver, the bug fix is currently no available. There are reports² that a new driver will be available shortly.

Additional Reading

Why GMA 500 hardware doesn't work out of the box? Read "Blaming Intel for how the world is" by Henry Kingman

Other problems?

If you're still having problems, please mail ubuntu-mobile@lists.ubuntu.com, and do not submit bug reports.