Linux on GMA 500

NOTE. If you are a linux user with gma 500 video card ,please, add a comment with your experience ;)

Let's start saying that GMA 500 works better with Microsoft products but anyway linux distros may be faster than Win 7. (I'm talking about system speed but i'm not so sure vs winxp and win 7 with classic theme + tweaks on US15 platform)

Linux is an opensource OS but,unfortunately, this has determinate the emergence of billions of distros that sometimes may confuse users migrating from other OS like MS or Mac...anyway leaving my thoughts let's talk of GMA 500 vs Linux.

I will not speak about the problems in linux with drivers (you can find some bugfix googling: like how to restore backlight,correct the resolution,resolve black screen), but i will show you a first look of the driver situation on Linux (April 2014)

First step "How to install a Linux distro"

1)Download UNetbootin

2)From the program choose if download a distro (check the list) or simply add an iso (downloaded before)

NOTE.Min Requirements  Ubuntu 12.04's distro: CPU 300MHz;  384MB RAM; 1GB Hard Disk; Display 640x480

Available Drivers

Theare two main partial working driver for US15 platform:

1)gma500_gfx, an updated version of psb_gfx, that is included since ubuntu 12.04

2)EMGD official, an updated version of IEGD for Fedora 7, that support Fedora 14 (Kernel version 2.6.35)
Intel EMGD was modified to make it working also in other distros like Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Lubuntu/ect but works only in few distros (in a first moment it was working only with kernel <3.0 (build max May 2011), now it's possible to install it with some trick but not always.

Why there is no open-source driver
Intel reply: Unfortunately we are not able to support all of the various distributions of Linux that are available. It is simply not practical to do that, and we are not able to provide 100% of the source code due to some IP involved in the media and 3d acceleration portions of the driver.

N.B.Reading from ubuntu pages: upgrade to ubuntu>12.04 isn't suggested for poor performance with the gpu

Main Difference: 

-gma500_gfx is Software Accelerated Driver (so performance depends by your CPU better with Atom >Z530 or overclocked CPU)

-EMGD\IEGD is Hardware Accelerated (better performance and less power consumption)

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NOTE for Terminal:

RAM available  "free"

Driver Installed "lsmod | grep gma" check that gma500_gfx is installed if you are not using EMG

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[TESTs]

Device: Asus 1101ha @1.33GHz, 2GB RAM, GMA 500, 1366x768 display

A)Ubuntu 12.04 (screen resolution 1366x768 is auto detected):

YouTube.com  WINDOWED - FULLSCREEN

1080p:             3  FPS             2FPS

720p:               3  FPS             3FPS

480p                9  FPS             5FPS

380p                25FPS             7FPS

AVI Trailer with default player:

1080p <1FPS

720p   <1FPS

Adding Suggested Tips: Ubuntu WIKI

A)"MPlayer"

<<Due to the lack of Hardware accelerated video playback in the gma500_gtx kernel driver, at current video playback can be very slow, it can freeze, jump and the audio and video can desynchronise, However it is possible to avoid this by using mplayer with multithreading>>

1. Install mplayer: sudo apt-get install mplayer

2. Go into the directory containing your video: in my case was "cd /home/eeepc/Scaricati" where eeepc is my username and Scaricati is Downloads folder

3. Play the video: "mplayer -lavdopts threads=4 -framedrop yourvideofile.avi" in my case was born.mp4 fullhd video 

This will drop frames when needed, and use 4 threads (You should change this depending on your Atom Processor) meaning playing HD video is possible.

Result: Better situation than default player but 720p video runs still 1FPS

B)Adding more RAM to the GPU:

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub   This will open grub with administrator rights

Add one of these lines and save the file:

For 1GB devices  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="mem=896mb"

For 2GB devices  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="mem=1920mb"

sudo update-grub 'To update grub informations

Conclusion: Poor Multimedia Performance (Windows wins without any dubt)

B)Fedora 14 (codename Laughlin, November 2010) this version is directly supported by IEMGD but i haven't still test this driver.

Comments without IEMGD: Slow boot, with basic driver max resolution is 1024x768;  old basic video driver has slow performance; RAM USAGE 170MB

C)Lubuntu 13.10 (Autodetect 1366x768 display)

Really better than Ubuntu 12.04 and Fedora 14, system is fast but anyway GPU driver is gma500_gfx so it's only Software Accelerated.

RAM USAGE: 100MB with default driver

This Distro is faster than Win7 and is suggested only for DESKTOP USAGE.

VIDEOs:

DIVX full Supported (<720p)

720p: Atom Z520 CPU Usage 98%, watchable but audio async

1080p: Lags, a lot of frame skips (not suggested)

YouTube.com  WINDOWED - FULLSCREEN

1080p:             3  FPS             2FPS

720p:               10  FPS             3FPS

480p                15  FPS             6FPS

380p                25FPS             10FPS

Note don't play anything else!

D)LUBUNTU 14.04.5 LTS + EMGD
Should be supported also 16 but in my test OS not loaded after install emgd 
You can install also Ubuntu with command written down but for edit files you can't use leafpad but gedit
Idle RAM: 135MB
Low EMGD rendering vs Windows EMGD
EMGD package upgrade  Xorg from 1.18.3 to 1.9.5/1.9.6

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INSTALLING EMGD and Enabling VAAPI on Ubuntu 10.04 (Guide by Linux-Tipps.blogspot.com)
Other Infos about Ubuntu 9.10: HERE
1)Download and install EMGD
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/fix
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install poulsbo-driver-3d
2)Reboot OS
3)Set up Xorg.conf:
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "GMA500"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "DRI" "on"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
Option "IgnoreACPI" "yes"
Driver "psb"
EndSection
4)Reboot OS
5)VideoPlayers:
wget http://www.splitted-desktop.com/~gbeauchesne/mplayer-vaapi/mplayer-vaapi-20100114.i686.tar.bz2
unp mplayer-vaapi*
sudo apt-get install mplayer libgtop2-7
mplayer -vo vaapi -va vaapi testfile.avi

VLC: 
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:c-korn/vlc && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install vlc

INSTALLING in LUBUNTU 14.04 or UBUNTU (another way)
1) Open LX terminal

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:thopiekar/emgd
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install emgd-drm-dkms xserver-xorg-1.9-video-emgd

2)it's time to blacklist gma500_gfx default driver

sudo leafpad 

and compile and save in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-gma500.conf (paste following content)

#use the EMGD driver instead
blacklist gma500_gfx

3)Configure Xorg in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

sudo leafpad 

Paste this:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Intel EMGD"
    Driver     "emgd"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Screen0"
 Device "Intel EMGD"
 SubSection "Display"
  Modes "1366x768"
 EndSubSection
EndSection

4)Fixing Audio

Edit and save the file /etc/pulse/default.pa always whit sudo leafpad

search  for load-module module-udev-detect and add tsched=0

result:  load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0

My conclusion: 

Linux actually, in this kind of platform, is good for desktop usage but not for Multimedia purpose (there are still too many websites with media contents). System can run, via Software Rendering, youtube but you need overclock to see  480p windowed videos.
The 3D Rendering is absent in gma500_gfx driver.

The EMGD for linux is still the best choice for multimedia goal but is outdated, not so fast, and not compatible with all distros (excellent combo!)

Start testing light distro like Lubuntu and Xubuntu

Take a look at these EXTERNAL LINKs for more infos:

https://launchpad.net/~gma500

https://launchpad.net/~thopiekar/+archive/emgd

https://github.com/EMGD-Community/intel-binaries-linux 

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PoulsboObsoleteDrivers

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1229345

EMGD driver

Release	Kernel	Xorg	EMGD Version	2D accel	3D compiz	Normal Video Playback (Xv)	Hardware Video Acceleration1
Oneiric (11.10) +	3.0.0-x	1.10	1.10+	N/A
	3.0.0-x	Downgraded 1.9	1.8	Acceptable	Excellent	Excellent	Acceptable
Natty (11.04)	2.6.xx	1.10	1.10+	N/A
	2.6.38-x	Downgraded 1.9	1.8	Acceptable	Excellent	Excellent	Acceptable
Lucid (10.04)	2.6.32-x	Upgraded 1.8	1.6	Acceptable	Excellent	Excellent	N/A

PSB driver

Release	Kernel	Xorg	2D accel	3D compiz	Normal Video Playback (Xv)	Hardware Video Acceleration1
Oneiric (11.10)	3.0.0-x	1.10	N/A
Natty (11.04)	Upgraded 2.6.39-rc1	1.10	N/A
	2.6.38-x	1.10	N/A
	Downgraded 2.6.35-x	1.10	Excellent	Bad	Acceptable	Excellent