GNOME3 Fallback Issue on Intel Haswell Graphics

[bagadbilla]

I have just done a fresh wheezy install on the new desktop computer and gnome3 has reverted to fallback mode.

Some basic outputs about the computer are
lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)

model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz (cat /proc/cpuinfo)

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 7.5 (wheezy)
Release: 7.5
Codename: wheezy
______________________________________________

I have tried so far without success:

- Updated to the backport kernel 3.14-0.bpo.1-amd64
- I have everything in my source list backport, jessie and experimental.

$ apt-cache policy xserver-xorg-video-intel
xserver-xorg-video-intel:
Installed: 2:2.19.0-6
Candidate: 2:2.19.0-6
Version table:
2:2.99.912-1~exp1 0
1 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ experimental/main amd64 Packages
2:2.21.15-2+b1 0
500 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie/main amd64 Packages
*** 2:2.19.0-6 0
990 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status


- Last time I upgraded to experimental version of the above and it ended me with just a console at boot. I tried to recover but failed and in a haste did another fresh install. I am unsure if jessie version of above might solve the issue. Although it is asking me to replace/ install a plethora of files ...

Is there anything else (safer) to be tried out to get gnome3 working without fallback.

Many Thanks
Sid

[sgosnell]

If you're mixing Wheezy, Wheezy backports, Jessie, and Experimental in you sources.list, you're going to have a broken system. You need to choose one or the other. You can add backports to Wheezy, but that's about it. Mixing Experimental and Testing with Stable is a bad, bad idea. I would reinstall and add only backports.

[bagadbilla]

At present nothing is mixed from jessie. I have not got anything extra from the future releases.

/etc/apt/apt.conf is set to APT::Default-Release "stable".

I have just added them to source list in case any driver might work from future releases.

Yes I did got a newer kernel image from backports hoping it might have solved it, but it did not ...

I understand mixing might result in a broken system, but my target is only to get full gnome3 capability by (may be) replacing some missing/old/obsolete libraries from wheezy with a newer one ...

[dasein]

I understand mixing might result in a broken system, but...

There is no "but." Trying to cobble together some FrankenSystem by mixing production and development releases is at best risky. You might even succeed, only to find your system totally hosed by the very next update.

Some cautionary examples: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=114130

The only thing you can count on is this: if you break it, you keep all the pieces.

[bagadbilla]

Hmm ... Thanks for that information. I shall bear the risk factors in mind ...

But now even if I revert all my source list etc and live with the stable version as it is running, my question still remains same ..

is it possible to run intel haswell graphics and gnome3 together with above details on wheezy or i need to wait for a better driver to be rolled out some day in the future ...

Since I have already updated to the backport linux-image will that be safe enough for future usage or i need to get back to using linux-image-3.2.0-4-amd64 which originally came by ...

Best
Sid

[bagadbilla]

Despite lot of searching around and not reaching to any possible solution, I installed gessie. The graphics work much better now and the interface is much more fluid.

The grub2 boot interface still looks a bit sloppy though despite being set at correct resolution and colour depth (as confirmed via grub > vbeinfo). It looks too scaled up with the high resolution (1920x1080) and really small font size. I am sure must be something in /etc/default/grub to set out the correct fonts and size. I have seen GRUB_GFXMODE responding well, but then I want to stick to higher res. but with readable font size

I do not know what are the other implications for using the "testing" that awaits in the future, but as of now the computer seems to be responding ok.

Some quick problems faced in the last few hours was to setup the cross-toolchains from emdebian but it was finally done. s/w like skype, teamviewer are forcing me to add i386 architecture and install the 32-bit packages aside which I want to avoid as of now ...