I have a computer intel 2.4 GHz, 1.5 GB

When I run ubuntu 10.04 GDM (gnome) crashes after a couple hours. It doesn't happen when running Ubuntu 10.10.

My research tells me it must have to do with a bug in the video driver for the particular video card I have.

How can I identify the exact video driver file that is loaded by the kernel? Is it a .ko file?

If I take the replace the driver file in Ubuntu 10.04 (2.6.32-28-generic kernel) with the video driver file from Ubuntu 10.10 (2.6.35-22-generic kernel), would that work when running Ubuntu 10.04?

No.

To see if the kernel is the problem then:

What you can do is to compile the maverick kernel on lucid.

Then run the maverick kernel on lucid and see if your problems persist.

Thanks for you reply. Are you saying that the video driver is embedded in the kernel, and not loaded separately as something like a .ko file?

Intel 2.4GHz....is that using a i8XX chipset (probably i845 or i865) with onboard video? IIRC there have been lots of problems with older intel video and newer ubuntu releases.

As far as I know, the 'problem' with the i8XX chipsets was from xorg, not the kernel. To get it working right, you might need just a newer xorg, or xorg and a newer kernel. I have no idea how you would do that with ubuntu though.

# dmesg | grep -i i8
[ 0.000000] ACPI: ASF! 5fe444d0 00084 (v16 AMIASF I845GASF 00000001 MSFT 0100000D)

I see I845 there...

The thing is ubuntu 10.10 works fine. I wonder if I can take the 10.10 source code for that video driver, and recompile the 10.04 kernel with it. Does that sound plausible?

It'll take you all of 5mins to try it.
If it doesn't work, why don't you just upgrade to 10.10? Or 11.04?
Re-compiling a module is a lot faster than re-compiling the whole kernel (which can take a couple of hours on a decent machine). If it fails, it'll say so, and why.

Improvements to linux happen faster than for other OSs, so sometimes it is useful to keep up to date.

That said, I am happy with 10.04(LTS), because all that I need, works.

I ran a hardware detection tool that told me that the motherboard is intel corp D845GVAD2 chipset: intel 845G/GL/GV and the onboard video is Intel 82845G/GL/[brookdale-G]/GE chipset integrated vga compatible controller

Is this enough information to identify the video driver source which I assume is compiled into the kernel from the C source files in the kernel.org source tree under linuxversion/drivers/video? My idea is to copy newer C source from a newer kernel, and recompile into the kernel of Ubunto 10.04 (2.6.32-28-generic which doesnt seem to have an exact match in http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/

Also I read (at the top of http://wiki.ubuntu.org.cn/UbuntuHelp:Kernel/Compile) that you would NOT need to recompile a kernel if you only need to compile a special driver, and would only need to install the linux-headers packages. Would that apply to my video driver?

redss, the open source video drivers in linux exist, essentially, in three different areas:

1) The kernel provided Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) driver (likely i915.ko). This provides functionality to both the DDX and the DRI drivers listed next.
2) The Xorg DDX (2D driver, intel_drv.so)
3) The Mesa Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) driver (3D driver, i915_dri.so or i965_dri.so).

You will likely not just be able to copy the DRM driver from an newer kernel to an older one. These drivers hook into the kernel in various ways. There is a reason why the DRM drivers are no longer developed in a separate git repository on freedesktop.org and are instead now updated via newer versions of the kernel.

Adam

So you don't think I'll be able to recompile source from a newer kernel where the bug is not present in the kernel? What options do I have? I want to use 10.04 LTS not 10.10

I think there is a greater than 50 percent chance that you won't be able to just copy the source over and have it compile. Even if that works, there are two other areas where the bug could reside.

As I see it, you can try to uprade (either via packages or from source) all three components I mentioned, you can upgrade the entire OS, you can try using another DE/WMn or you can report the bug to Ubuntu and hope (probably in vain) that they fix it.

My suggestion would be to upgrade the OS, despite your desire to stay with 10.04.

Thanks again. I think the easiest step would be to update each of the 3 components you mentioned to see if that fixes it. If I can use apt-get or synaptic, that sounds relatively easy. I just need to figure out what the package names containing those components are, as known by the package manager. Do you happen to know them ?

Mixing packages from different versions of a distribution is not smart, not recommended, and often a sure-fire way to screw things up. It should only be done if you absolutely know what you are doing. If you have to ask me what the package names are then you don't absolutely know what you are doing. Sorry, but I'm not going to help you break your system.

My system is just a live USB distro, so nothing will break permanently... if something does break, I just reboot. If I find the cause of the problem, I know how to customize the bootable usb image with an updated driver or kernel. My hunch is there is a way to fix or update out there somewhere that will allow this system to run reliably on 10.04, I just have to find out what it is.

cascade9, thanks very much for the link. This my video card:

# lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)

I thought of an idea, could I just purchase another newer PCI video card and disable the onboard video? Sounds like that would be the simplest way to fix the problem, right?