Linux on the Intel DQ77KB

Written by Michael Sproul on November 5, 2016.

If you are unfortunate enough to own an Intel DQ77KB motherboard, and sensibly want to run Linux on it, then the following information may be of use.

Disable the onboard DisplayPort header

The DQ77KB has a header on the motherboard for connecting a laptop-style display, but it totally fucks everything up under Linux, so you need to disable it.

You can do this from the BIOS settings (hold F2 at boot), through this menu:

Configuration > Video > (IGD Flat Panel = Disable)

I tried 3 different Linux live distros (Solus, Elementary and Fedora) and all of them froze oddly on the desktop wallpaper without ever loading the window manager. Restarting gdm/lightdm didn’t help at all, but dmesg showed errors about drm fifo underruns.

NB: The other reason I hate this board is that I bought it to use with a Hauppauge TV tuner, and it never worked, and Intel took no responsibility for their janky PCIe implementation. Not going to buy an Intel motherboard again any time soon!