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> On Sun, 16 Nov 2008, markw-FJ05HQ0HCKaWd6l5hS35sQ at public.gmane.org wrote: > >> As a battle hardened veteran of XFree86, I can tell you that there are >> two >> issues to setting up xorg.conf >> >> (1) The capability of the display >> (2) The range/resolution modes of the video card. >> >> The first thing you need to do is (I forget the procedure, but google >> should help) is to run X or one of its tools to probe and display the >> possible resolutions of the display card can handle. (They may be >> printed >> in the log file). >> >> Then, you pick the best match of compatible modes that both the display >> card and the monitor can handle. Once you have a match, work on getting >> that setting to work, otherwise, you are just wasting time guessing at >> something that may never work. >> >> If your video card does not handle the resolution you want, look around >> at >> places like Microcenter for their cheap AGP cards. Chances are you can >> google for supported modes on the cards and, of course, their support on >> Linux, and find one that supports the best resolution of your TV. >> >> Good luck! > > I recently converted my wife's PC to Ubuntu (I tried Debian, and wanted > Firefox instead of iceweasel (also had troubles getting flash player to > work). Debian immediately had high res (standard off-the-shelf Intel P3 > mobo with built-in video). But Ubuntu only gave me 800x600 max res. One > thing I learned in years past was to manually enter the horizontal and > vertical refresh rates of the MONITOR into the X setup config (xf88config > back then, xorg.conf now). Well, yes, the modern X servers will seek their best match. I worked on some XFree86 drivers a number of years ago, it is a big hairy mess. > > In doing this, and rebooting that PC, Ubuntu magically discovered a new > range of higher resolutions. The "card" has a fixed set of ranges, the driver tries to match those ranges to characteristics of the monitor. These days, LCD monitors mostly don't care too much about the sync frequencies. > > Same in configuring Linux, over time, for my ol' Dell CRT (17 inch) > monitor. Unless I give Linux the specific frequency ranges, it can't > display proper high res for me. Newer monitors and X use I2C (I Squared C) serial communication to get that information directly from the monitors. > > Again, I'm not entered the rates of the card, but the *monitor*. You may > still need the driver for the card to get Linux properly talking to it, > too. The proprietary drivers usually do a good job, unless they crash :-) > Hope that helps. > > Scott > >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> Discuss-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org >> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >> >
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