Finding the right name for your Intel graphics chipset

The output of lspci does not always provide enough information about graphics card and integrated graphics chipsets :

fool@localhost:~$ lspci -nn |egrep “VGA|Display”
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2e32] (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2e33] (rev 03)

In this case, this information “Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller”  is not sufficient to find the right name of this Intel graphics chipset.  There are two solutions to solve it :

fool@localhost:~$grep -i chipset /var/log/Xorg.0.log

[    17.764] (II) intel: Driver for Intel Integrated Graphics Chipsets: i810,
[    17.770] (II) intel(0): Integrated Graphics Chipset: Intel(R) G41
[    17.770] (–) intel(0): Chipset: “G41″

fool@localhost:~$dmesg |grep -i agp

[    1.008912] Linux agpgart interface v0.103
[    1.009057] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: Intel G41 Chipset
[    1.009142] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: detected gtt size: 2097152K total, 262144K mappable
[    1.010058] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: detected 32768K stolen memory
[    1.010181] agpgart-intel 0000:00:00.0: AGP aperture is 256M @ 0xe0000000

With this information, it will be much more easier to use the right driver and tune the Xorg configuration file. (if necessary)

Hope this helps !

Cannot locate a core pointer device / Cannot locate a core keyboard device.

With Debian, the X11 config file can automatically filled with default values after a dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg.
If any X11-related error occurs, some lines are added to the X11 default log file : /var/log/Xorg.0.log

There are several levels of warnings : EE for error, WW for warning and here II for informational.
In order to have a X11 config file very close to my hardware and software configuration, I try to remove any message such as this one below :

(II) Cannot locate a core pointer device.                    
(II) Cannot locate a core keyboard device.                   
(II) The server relies on HAL to provide the list of input devices.
        If no devices become available, reconfigure HAL or disable AllowEmptyInput.

To avoid having this lines each time the X11 server is started, you have to add these information to your X11 config file in the “Server Flags” section :

Option “AllowEmptyInput” “off”

To see the changes, restart your X11 server and check your X11 log file.

Grabbing hardware information

There are several command-line utilities such lspci,lsusb or lshw.
If you are looking for help on the Internet about finding the good driver for your hardware, check the links below :

About 3D Graphics hardware using Free Software drivers

A hardware inventory aggregator

FSF listing for compatible hardware with free software

Debian GNU/Linux device driver check