Display resolution/colour problem (again)Forum: X and Fluxbox Topic: Display resolution/colour problem (again) started by: Aidan Posted by Aidan on May 29 2005,18:28
Hi all,Sorry to post yet another 'why doesn't my display look right?' thread, but I've trawled these forums and tried loads of things and I still can't get it to work. The problem: According to the settings I choose, I can either get my dsl laptop to display at 640x480x16, which gives me nice colours but a big black bar all around the desktop (unuseful size), or 800x600xUp to 8, which gives me a full-sized desktop but really odd colours with a nasty greenish-yellow hue (if I use xvesa) or mostly dark blue (if I use xfbdev). I have a HDD install on a TI/Acer Extensa 355 with 800x600 screen < (spec here) >. It's only got 1MB of video ram so I realise I can't get 800x600x16 (xvesa -force listed it as unsupported). I have added vga=771 to the lilo.conf file. This seems to be the appropriate value as it's the only one in which the cute little penguin appears during bootup and all the others I tried resulted in that 'passed an unsupported mode' error during initial boot. I have also added 'fb800x600' in the 'append' statement, but this didn't seem to do anything. I would be most grateful for any assistance anyone can give me. Many thanks in advance. --Aidan Posted by mikshaw on May 29 2005,19:16
The only help i can give is concerning the black bar. As far as i know this is related to your monitor settings for 640x480. If your monitor has buttons to adjust height and width of the display area, you should be able to fix it with those.
Posted by ke4nt1 on May 29 2005,20:17
my little toshiba laptop, which has the same problem at 800x600x8,but runs in 16 color in W95, finally worked in 800x600x16 using the XFree86.dsl extension... Perhaps you could give it a try using 640x480.. 73 ke4nt Posted by Aidan on May 30 2005,11:46
Thanks for your help guys, still having problems:mikshaw - it's an old laptop with no monitor buttons, but thanks anyway. I downloaded XFree86.dsl as per your suggestion ke4nt, made the appropriate change to /home/dsl/.xserverrc and found a XF86Config-4 file for my exact machine via google, which I have put in /etc/X11. Crossed my fingers and did startx, and the thing behaved _exactly_ as before i.e. there was no indication that installing XFree86 had altered anything. Does this sound right (frankly I expected it to behave oddly at least on the first go)? Or am I being really stupid about something? All suggestions (the biologically possible ones, anyway) will be tried and appreciated. Thanks, --Aidan Posted by cbagger01 on May 30 2005,17:07
It is possible that you are still booting via the old KDrive xserver.It is also possible that you are not using the appropriate XFree86 server for the C & T graphics card. Maybe ke4nt1 can post his XF86Config-4 file here. Posted by Aidan on May 30 2005,18:35
cbagger01,it certainly looks as if I'm not booting via anything new. What do I need to look at/change to ascertain/fix this? The C&T card isn't 'officially' supported, but is offered as an option in the xf86config utility. Thanks, --Aidan Posted by cbagger01 on May 31 2005,03:13
Are you logging in as username "dsl"?The /home/dsl/.xserverrc changes will only work if you are user "dsl". Otherwise, you should change the .xserverrc for the appropriate username (root, newuser, etc) Also, I assume that this is your XF86Config. If not, give it a try: < http://dur.ch/konfiguriert/extensa/XF86Config.txt > Try pressing CTRL ALT + to scroll through the other graphics modes. Posted by Aidan on May 31 2005,09:29
(the quiet of a Midlands morning is shattered by the sound of palm striking forehead)D'OH! And after a little bit of tweaking IT'S FINALLY WORKING! Thankyou cbagger1, ke4nt1 and mikshaw for your assistance - it is much appreciated. Off now to write a howto for my machine so other hapless newbs don't bug you. Take care, --Aidan |