Xorg crashes several times a day

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Sun, 24 Jan 2021 19:11:23 +0100, Polytropon wrote:
>Only older hardware might need manual intervention.

Hi,

I didn't read the complete thread, so I don't know if this was already
mentioned.

Relatively "modern" Intel GPUs need hardcore intervention on
Linux machines. If FreeBSD isn't affect, it's nice.

Latest Linux kernels suffer from a regression, you either need
to migrate from the "intel" to the "modesetting" driver or you need to
downgrade to an older, still supported LTS kernel. However, soon or
later even LTS kernel support will be dropped by kernel.org.

My machine is affected, my relatively "modern" GPU is actually very
old, but I won't get rid of issues with the latest and greatest Intel
GPU, so I switched to the "modesetting" driver, but using it is a PITA.

Firfox suffers from short hangs, Chrome can't be used at all, even not
by following a recommended workaround, to use the "disable GPU"
feature.

I'm back to the "intel" driver... 

[rocketmouse at archlinux ~]$ grep Driver /etc/X11/xorg.conf
        Driver      "intel"
        #Driver     "vesa"
        #Driver     "modesetting"

...and build old LTS kernels.

JFTR those halfway modern desktop environments or Linux window managers
work very good when using the "modesetting" driver. Just important
software doesn't work properly.

Maybe FreeBSD is affected, too?

A few links are provided by
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/intel_graphics#Installation .

"Note: Some (Debian & Ubuntu, Fedora, KDE) recommend not installing the
xf86-video-intel driver, and instead falling back on the modesetting
driver for Gen4 and newer GPUs (GMA 3000 from 2006 and newer). See [1],
[2], Xorg#Installation, and modesetting(4). However, the modesetting
driver can cause problems such as Chromium Issue 370022 and vsync
jitter/video stutter in mpv."

Regards,
Ralf