Display

Forum: X and Fluxbox
Topic: Display
started by: yaco

Posted by yaco on April 12 2005,12:08

I am using a nice TFT monitor from Dell (FP1901). After booting either from the live-CD or from the HD, when the X-Server (seems to) start I can only see the message: "unable to display this video mode". Then I switch to an old CRT monitor and after changing the video settings to 800x600 I can switch back to the TFT and work. Obviously the default sync. frequencies are beyond the capabilities of the flat panel monitor and I cannot see where these settings are stored, because there is no XF86config file. Does anybody know how to change the frequency settings or whatever has to be changed so that I do not have to reinstall XFree86?
Thank you

Posted by cbagger01 on April 12 2005,22:01

You can't change the default timings.

DSL uses VESA video timings. You can try different resolutions and see if you can find one that is accepted by the monitor.

For VESA tryouts, boot dsl with this command:

dsl vga=normal xsetup

and then choose Xvesa server and try some of the different resolutions and color depths.

For "Frame Buffer" tryouts, boot DSL and press the F3 key at the boot prompt.
You will see a list of framebuffer resolution codes. Pick one and boot with:

dsl vga=xxx xsetup (where "xxx" is your code of choice)

and choose xfbdev server at the prompt.

If you already see the penguin and the boot status messages, skip all of this stuff and just try this boot command:

fb1024x768 (no "dsl" at the beginning of the line)

or maybe

fb800x600

If none of these work, you will need to install the full-blown XFree86 extension and configure your XFree86 xserver.

Good Luck.

Posted by yaco on April 13 2005,14:25

Thanks for your answer. Actually I can work with a lower resolution
but I need to work with 1280x1024, which does not seem to be possible. You say I cannot change the timings; can you say more about this?
Yaco

Posted by cbagger01 on April 14 2005,03:39

Sure.

The X server that comes with DSL is not the full-blown XFree86 server.

Instead, it one of two small servers that have been called TinyX / Kdrive / Freedeskop.orgXserver from time to time.

These servers or associated VGA frame buffers use the original VESA 2.0 standard resolution timings.

They are not adjustable becaues the VESA 2.0 standard does not allow for the customization of monitor timings.

So if you REALLY want to adjust your monitor timings, you need to download and install the XFree86.dsl package from the MyDSL repository and follow the detailed instructions.

It is very likely that there is an XFree86 server that is designed to work with your computer's graphics card so it will be possible to adjust your monitor timings using the same /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file that most full size Linux distributions also use.

I can't explain this any clearer, so I hope that you understand now.