cruiseoveride
2007-01-12, 01:48 PM CST
I recently acquired a HP-X Class Visualise Workstation, and came across rather subtle and yet very frustrating problems running Linux on it. Hopefully someone will benefit by they the pain I have already gone through :)
Due to the Broadcom ServerWorks chipsets used in the X-Class, there is very little support for things such as ACPI, AGPGART, USB etc... in the Linux kernel (2.6.19).
The 3 issues I have had...
1. USB host controller does not receive IRQ, hence, does not work.
2. System does not power off
3. Intermittent lockups during heavy graphics + external IO usage
The 3 solutions...
1. In order to get USB working, all pci information will need to be routed, as in the current state the pci_enable_device() will fail during a module load. In order to do this, simply pass the following argument to the kernel while booting.
pci=routeirq
2. To get power off working, you will need to pass the following option to the kernel during boot.
acpi=force
3. Due to the lack of documentation and hence poor support for ServerWorks chipsets in Linux, the Linux AGPGART driver will need to be disabled, and instead the Nvidia NvAGP driver will be needed. The latest driver with support for the Nvidia Quadro2 MXR is the 1.0-96xx version. Which is available through the Nvidia Legacy Archive.
1.0-9631 (http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.0-9631.html)
After installing this driver, you will either need to completely build out AGPGART from the kernel, or pass the following boot parameter.
agp=off
And also add the following to the xorg.conf Device Section
Option "NvAGP" "1"
You should now have a rock solid Fedora powered workstation with the exceptional build quality that HP offers :).
Due to the Broadcom ServerWorks chipsets used in the X-Class, there is very little support for things such as ACPI, AGPGART, USB etc... in the Linux kernel (2.6.19).
The 3 issues I have had...
1. USB host controller does not receive IRQ, hence, does not work.
2. System does not power off
3. Intermittent lockups during heavy graphics + external IO usage
The 3 solutions...
1. In order to get USB working, all pci information will need to be routed, as in the current state the pci_enable_device() will fail during a module load. In order to do this, simply pass the following argument to the kernel while booting.
pci=routeirq
2. To get power off working, you will need to pass the following option to the kernel during boot.
acpi=force
3. Due to the lack of documentation and hence poor support for ServerWorks chipsets in Linux, the Linux AGPGART driver will need to be disabled, and instead the Nvidia NvAGP driver will be needed. The latest driver with support for the Nvidia Quadro2 MXR is the 1.0-96xx version. Which is available through the Nvidia Legacy Archive.
1.0-9631 (http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.0-9631.html)
After installing this driver, you will either need to completely build out AGPGART from the kernel, or pass the following boot parameter.
agp=off
And also add the following to the xorg.conf Device Section
Option "NvAGP" "1"
You should now have a rock solid Fedora powered workstation with the exceptional build quality that HP offers :).