Linux, the Sandy-Bridge CPU and the HD3000 GPU
For all those who are wondering how great the Linux support with the new Sandy-Bridge CPUs are, I can let you know, It works great!
As the guys from Phoronix already showed in www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_sandy_speed&num=1 Linux runs quite well, as long as you connect the right hardware together. In my case, I put myself a new PC together with the following main components:
- Intel Mainboard DH67GD
- Intel Sandy-Bridge CPU i5 2500K, 3.3GHz, 4 Core
I tested it with Kubuntu 10.10 (Maverick) as well as Kubuntu 11.04 beta1 (Natty).
Instead of additional graphic cards I am using the new HD3000 Graphics Processing Core which is directly build into the Sandy-Bridge processor. In both OS’s I updated to the latest graphic card drivers and kernel.
In both tested Linux, the graphics looked good out of the box. Only the context menus got distorted. A bug report and a solution is already shown in bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/natty/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/732304. You will have to create a xorg.conf file and add the option „shadow“:
Section "Device" Identifier "Sandybridge" Driver "intel" Option "Shadow" "true" Option "DRI" "false" EndSection
This might disable the 3d acceleration, but makes the GPU work correctly. I am sure there will be a better solution soon. As for new the Sandy-Bridge CPUs are still new and not yet very much used.
Update (13. April 2011):
With the latest kernel (2.6.38-8-generic) this hack is not needed anymore!
In Kubuntu 11.04 even some of the Compiz effects work. Not all of them, but some nice ones like transparency work very well.
As I also prefer to work with more than one monitor, I had a look into dual screen options. In Kubuntu 10.10 I could only get it working when I removed the „shadow“ option in the xorg.conf file. In Kubuntu 11.04 however it worked with the „shadow“ option enabled. Like I already mentioned in one of my earlier posts (Kubuntu 10.10 and dual screen) that Kubuntu always resets the dual screen option on a restart of the X server. This again can be solved with some command lines in the file /etc/kde4/kdm/Xsetup:
xrandr --output HDMI1 --primary xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1920x1080 xrandr --output HDMI3 --mode 1280x1024 xrandr --output HDMI3 --left-of HDMI1
Of course you will have to adjust the names of the devices. After that the X server should start directly with dual screen support and no menu distortion.
Hey, just saw this now, and was wondering if you had any problems with wireless connectivity out of the box with the Motherboard, or if drivers were needed, etc? Any feedbak would be greatly appreciated 😀
My board does not have wifi as it is a desktop mainboard.
So I don’t know how good it works.