RHEL 6 for the Clueless: Intel Graphics

The special situation involving Intel graphics hardware requires a separate explanation. This applies to RHEL 6.x, Scientific Linux 6.x and the soon-to-be-released CentOS 6.x (something like 01 July).

on a computer with Intel video, most often you will have to bypass the graphical installer by selecting the “Install with basic video driver” option. If you do, the installer will do two things you’ll need to consider fixing.

First, it will create an X.org config file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) calling for the VESA driver. This isn’t a bad thing in itself, but it will limit performance and create a few hassles with your display. Edit this file, which should have only a few lines in it. Look for the deeply indented line starting with Driver and replace “vesa” with “intel”.

Second, it will turn off kernel mode setting (KMS). Again, not a disaster, but you won’t get that nice graphical boot screen. The correction is editing /boot/grub/menu.lst (that’s LST lower case on the end of the file name). Scroll down until you see a deeply indented line which begins with “kernel /boot/vmlinuz...” and stretches quite long. Near the end of that line look for the word nomodeset and delete it. Save the file.

If you fix the KMS issue and not the driver issue, it won’t finish booting on some machines. So fix both and reboot, or fix neither.