NUC6CAYH video problems

[kendew]

Well, usually I'm installing Linux on older machines but this time it's on a new one, one of the latest of Intel's NUC series.  Building for a friend so want a stable system, so using the stable stretch based install.  But I'm getting some video distortion, not serious but a noticeable wavy like effect usually when scrolling in browsers, like I'll notice it with the dark headers on these forum pages.  I've tried a lot of things, installing a 4.12 kernel.  Whether 4.9 or 4.12 the Xorg seems to default to modesetting.  I tried changing it to the intel driver but lightdm refused to put up a login screen and the system was generally frozen until I used rm -r as root to remove the xorg file I had written.
I wonder if anyone has any ideas of an effective Xorg file to write.  I thought of adding a notear option but heard modesetting won't support that.  Intel will offer no support for Linux.
Thanks
Kendew

[paxmark1]

It is perfectly fine to post here, you might get lucky with the 100'ish people who view. 

I am always interested in new SFF (small form factor) options.  A little more info on the specs of the Video system is always helpful.  Outputting of info via inxi   is common on several forums or via lspci. 

Posting of what other sources you have searched, irc, Debian bug reports, upstream bug reports is also helpful.    If solved, please tell us how and edit post Subject to Solved:blah   peace out.

[kendew]

Just want to let anyone interested know what I've done so far. First, even if it compromises stability a little, I installed kernel version 4.12.1 from testing. I uninstalled the intel xorg driver as I couldn't get it to work (see above) anyway and tried modesetting. As modesetting wasn't working perhaps because I couldn't figure out how to get it to work, I installed an xorg intel driver via testing:

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apt-get -t, but apparently there is no real differences in versions, so not sure why the original intel driver wasn't working. 
I wrote the appropriate files in /etc/apt/preferences.d and /etc/apt/sources.list.d. Then I created a basic 20-intel.conf file as a test:

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Section "Device"
    Identifier "Intel Graphics"
    Driver "intel"
    Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection


It did work and, finally, the tearing was gone! Success!!
I think there are also better ways to install a 4.12 kernel, and I also installed Broxton related files from Intel's website because Broxton showed up:

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inxi -G
Graphics:  Card: Intel Device 5a85
           Display Server: X.Org 1.19.2 drivers: modesetting (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 500 (Broxton 2x6)
           GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 13.0.6
But now the driver is Intel:

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$ inxi -G
Graphics:  Card: Intel Device 5a85
           Display Server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: intel Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 500 (Broxton 2x6) GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 13.0.6

So I don't know whether the Broxton files from https://01.org/linuxgraphics/intel-linux-graphics-firmwares was any help at all.
Disconcerting making such changes when my aim is a stable system, but with this new NUC6CAYH it has helped.  The graphics are fine now.  The tearing is gone. 
So marking this solved, even though for me things are never completely solved.....
Kendew

[paxmark1]

sounds good.  It is not the worst thing to get a Debian kernel from testing.  The most conservative way of newest kernels for stable is via backports.  It has a Debian page.  However "apt-cache search linux-image" on my stable computer with backports enabled only yields 4.11.0.bpo as the newest kernel (bpo identifies it as a backport).

For you - having a component that is in heavy development you might just need 4.12.  Security wise -  the kernel is from Debian and the Broxton - well it is coming from Intel, I would not lose any sleep over that.    BTW 01.org is also the site for all source and high level info for connman - my preference over network-manager. 

Marking as solved makes it more likely others will come here and see a solution and take a look at Sparky.  peace out.