X problems on Dell Latitude w/i915 graphics (and Fn-key, questions)

[Erik Hemdal]

>
>
>>We're having problems with the X server when running Fedora or Red Hat
>> Linux (i.e. we've tried both FC3 & older stuff) on a Dell Latitude 610
>> notebook with an Intel 915 graphics chip. Firstly, no driver but "vesa"
>> appears to work at all, but we don't mind that too much. However, we
>> can't get a correct display with that either. Symptoms:
>> 
>>     * A black screen is displayed by default.
>>     * When using an external monitor instead of the built-in LCD screen,
>>       everything works fine.
>>     * If starting up with external display, then switching to the
>>       build-in one via and Fn-key combination (Fn+F8 in this case), the
>>       built-in one also works.
>>     * The same is true after starting with the internal one (and getting
>>       a black screen), then switching to external and back to internal.
>>     * In the above two cases, display is once again lost if we switch to
>>       a different VT via Ctrl+Alt+F-keys, then back to the X server.
>> 
>> Any ideas how to get around this? I mean, how to get the internal
>> display to work directly?
>> 
>


I ran into an ugly X display on Dell  Optiplex GX150.  It has an 815 chipset.  Here's what I did to overcome it.  After installing, and getting the nonfunctional X display, I went to a virtual terminal (CTRL-ALT-F1), logged in as root, and updated X.  Actually I did a simple 'yum update' and got the Xorg updates.  With the latest packages, everything worked.  Not quite out-of-the-box, but not a showstopper.  To make this work, you need to install the requisite GPG keys to get yum or up2date to accept the updates.

I'm not sure if this will solve your issue, but it might be worth a try.   Erik