My computer is very unstable while running Ubuntu 14.04.2 or upper (anything newer than kernel 3.13) with only a VNC viewer in a sort of kiosk mode, it freezes frequently having to do a hard reset many times a day. As shown in this related bug it appears to be a problem with the intel i915 kernel module on Bay Trail systems and there is no workaround, even on newer kernels.
I don't need any 3D nor hardware acceleration, so how can I disable the intel i915 sound and video drivers and use a VESA / framebuffer generic one or something simpler? Is it possible to do this? I just want to be sure that the modules are not loaded and still run a simple X11 apps.
I tried adding this to a file in /etc/modprobe.d/ file and updating initramfs:
blacklist i915
blacklist snd_hda_intel
But /var/log/Xorg.0.log still shows that it is loading them:
[323589.490] (II) LoadModule: "intel"
[323589.491] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so
[323589.516] (II) Module intel: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[323589.554] (II) intel(G0): Using Kernel Mode Setting driver: i915, version 1.6.0 20150522
[323589.554] (II) intel(G0): SNA compiled: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20150808-0ubuntu4 (Robert Ancell <robert.ancell@canonical.com>)
[323589.554] (II) intel(G0): SNA compiled for use with valgrind
[323589.555] (II) intel: Driver for Intel(R) Integrated Graphics Chipsets:
[323589.556] (II) intel: Driver for Intel(R) HD Graphics: 2000-6000
[323589.556] (II) intel: Driver for Intel(R) Iris(TM) Graphics: 5100, 6100
[323589.556] (II) intel: Driver for Intel(R) Iris(TM) Pro Graphics: 5200, 6200, P6300