1:04 p.m.
Hi all,
I've decided it was time to drink the KoolAid so I downloaded the "f10
Live CD", burned a bootable image, and hit reset. All in all pretty
impressive.
However, the screen resolution defaulted to 800x600, useless on a 22"
lcd display. In f->system->preferences->hardware->screen_resolution
there was only one selection available: 800x600. Aaargh! As a
work-around I copied over an xorg.conf file from another machine, did
the old init 3; init 5 routine and suddenly had a high resolution display.
What I don't understand is that this display adapter has worked
beautifully in fc4, fc6, and fc8 installations.
lspci reveals the card to be an nVidia Corporation NV5M64 [RIVA TNT2
Model 64/Model 64 Pro] (rev 15) (I know: nVidia = proprietary) but this
card is ancient and has been well supported for many, many years.
Now, a neophyte trying out this release would have no idea about
xorg.conf and would certainly not have a copy of it laying around. How
would they be able to handle this?
Below is the relevant section from xorg.conf:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nv"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "RIVA TNT2"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1680x1050" "1400x1050" "1280x1024"
"1280x960" "1280x800"
"1152x864" "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection
The below are the resolutions offered after I added the above xorg.conf.
1600x1200
1400x1050
1280x1024
1280x960
1152x864
1024x768
...
320x240
There is absolutely NO correlation between the two that I can ascertain.
Also, 1600x1200 is squeezed into the 1680x1050 area resulting in ovals
instead of circles and squashed fonts.
Anybody have any advice on how to get decent settings? When there was
an option for Display settings this was fixable, but now we don't even
have that choice. Smells an awful lot like a regression.
Anybody remember waaaay back to the RedHat 4 boxed distro with a dead
tree manual included? If you wanted to you use it you had to spring for
a Matrox video card to the tune of half a grand. I never did get to use
it. Had to wait for 5.2. :(
Thanks for any help,
Mike Wright
9:53 a.m.
David wrote:
On 5/9/2009 3:15 PM, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> Craig White wrote:
>> On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 23:59 +0930, Tim wrote:
>>> On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 11:04 -0700, Mike Wright wrote:
>>>> What I don't understand is that this display adapter has worked
>>>> beautifully in fc4, fc6, and fc8 installations.
>>> Changes in Xorg, over time... The difficulty with a live CD is that
>>> it's virtually fixed with the original software, no updates. It's
not
>>> uncommon to find that people who've installed an OS (to writeable
>>> media), and had graphics problems, that they've gone away after a
"yum
>>> update".
>> ----
>> much of this could be resolved by more people running the testing
>> versions and reporting issues with various hardware BEFORE it is
>> released.
> FC11 has not been released, and this problem goes back to FC9 at least,
> that certain monitors are mis-detected and are either too high or low in
> resolution. There should be one more install in addition to text and
> graphic (automatic) modes, and that is install with vga=ask to let the
> user pick the resolution needed.
> You can't imagine how unreadable 640x480 is on a 42" HDTV, you need the
> wireless keyboard and mouse to get about fifteen feet away. Or to enter
> the correct resolution, but many users don't know how to do that.
*My* Monitor is never detected correctly. I have to manually set this. The
problem? *My* monitor does not identify itself properly. So is that Fedora's
fault? Of my problem? I think it is the latter.
I don't think fault is an issue, there's a long-standing issue reported by
multiple people, and there's a solution allowing user selection regardless of
cause. As long as people waste time talking about 'fault' instead of solutions
the problem will be unsolved. And that goes for long discussions of the best
solution vs. implementing a low cost viable solution knowing it may be improved.
I have to believe adding a menu item "install using user-selected resolution"
would be low effort, and based on multiple machines and the method being used at
an installathon, I think it's viable.
At the very least they usually give you a viewable screen.
On several SiS chipsets you get the top ten lines or so of a 640x480 resolution.
Not useful for install. With 'vga=ask' 800x600 or higher and 15/16 bits it
works.
The 'Evil God' Windows does not identify monitors. You get a
viewable screen
that you then setup using video drivers that you download and install by hand.
Sheez...
Windows is a great virtualization testing tool, like most benchmarks and testing
tools it's not actually *useful* for anything. ;-)
--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen(a)tmr.com>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot
1:23 p.m.
On Sun, 2009-05-10 at 10:53 -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
there's a long-standing issue reported by multiple people, and
there's
a solution allowing user selection regardless of cause
Going back years ago, perhaps to Red Hat Linux days, it was simple
enough to manually configure some monitors through a GUI that let you
enter scan rates and pixel heights and widths. Not a command line
modeline generator, a configurator for X.
--
[tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.21-78.2.41.fc9.i686
Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I
read messages from the public lists.
3:11 p.m.
On 5/9/2009 3:15 PM, Bill Davidsen wrote:
Craig White wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 23:59 +0930, Tim wrote:
>> On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 11:04 -0700, Mike Wright wrote:
>>> What I don't understand is that this display adapter has worked
>>> beautifully in fc4, fc6, and fc8 installations.
>> Changes in Xorg, over time... The difficulty with a live CD is that
>> it's virtually fixed with the original software, no updates. It's not
>> uncommon to find that people who've installed an OS (to writeable
>> media), and had graphics problems, that they've gone away after a "yum
>> update".
> ----
> much of this could be resolved by more people running the testing
> versions and reporting issues with various hardware BEFORE it is
> released.
FC11 has not been released, and this problem goes back to FC9 at
least,
that certain monitors are mis-detected and are either too high or low in
resolution. There should be one more install in addition to text and
graphic (automatic) modes, and that is install with vga=ask to let the
user pick the resolution needed.
You can't imagine how unreadable 640x480 is on a 42" HDTV,
you need the
wireless keyboard and mouse to get about fifteen feet away. Or to enter
the correct resolution, but many users don't know how to do that.
*My* Monitor is never detected correctly. I have to manually set this. The
problem? *My* monitor does not identify itself properly. So is that Fedora's
fault? Of my problem? I think it is the latter.
At the very least they usually give you a viewable screen.
The 'Evil God' Windows does not identify monitors. You get a viewable screen
that you then setup using video drivers that you download and install by hand.
Sheez...
--
David
11:08 a.m.
On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 23:59 +0930, Tim wrote:
On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 11:04 -0700, Mike Wright wrote:
> What I don't understand is that this display adapter has worked
> beautifully in fc4, fc6, and fc8 installations.
Changes in Xorg, over time... The difficulty with a live CD is that
it's virtually fixed with the original software, no updates. It's not
uncommon to find that people who've installed an OS (to writeable
media), and had graphics problems, that they've gone away after a "yum
update".
----
much of this could be resolved by more people running the testing
versions and reporting issues with various hardware BEFORE it is
released.
Craig
--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.
9:27 a.m.
On Sat, 09 May 2009 10:17:47 -0400
Bill Davidsen wrote:
First, let me agree that the install does a dreadful job of picking
screen mode.
It seems that after the install you find that the display hardware is
misidentified, and that changing that to "generic LCD" of suitable resolution
will solve the issue.
That used to happen to me all the time, but since about fedora 8 it has
been correctly detecting the proper native resolution for me (in fact it
gets way too carried away with literal interpretation of the monitor's
EDID info, requiring me to work like a dog to successfully lie about
the DPI to get the fonts readable :-).
9:50 p.m.
Tim wrote:
On Sun, 2009-05-10 at 10:53 -0400, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> there's a long-standing issue reported by multiple people, and there's
> a solution allowing user selection regardless of cause
Going back years ago, perhaps to Red Hat Linux days, it was simple
enough to manually configure some monitors through a GUI that let you
enter scan rates and pixel heights and widths. Not a command line
modeline generator, a configurator for X.
xvidmode
--
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome(a)rcn.com
cummings(a)kjchome.homeip.net
cummings(a)kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)
2:15 p.m.
Craig White wrote:
On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 23:59 +0930, Tim wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 11:04 -0700, Mike Wright wrote:
>> What I don't understand is that this display adapter has worked
>> beautifully in fc4, fc6, and fc8 installations.
> Changes in Xorg, over time... The difficulty with a live CD is that
> it's virtually fixed with the original software, no updates. It's not
> uncommon to find that people who've installed an OS (to writeable
> media), and had graphics problems, that they've gone away after a "yum
> update".
----
much of this could be resolved by more people running the testing
versions and reporting issues with various hardware BEFORE it is
released.
FC11 has not been released, and this problem goes back to FC9 at least, that
certain monitors are mis-detected and are either too high or low in resolution.
There should be one more install in addition to text and graphic (automatic)
modes, and that is install with vga=ask to let the user pick the resolution needed.
You can't imagine how unreadable 640x480 is on a 42" HDTV, you need the wireless
keyboard and mouse to get about fifteen feet away. Or to enter the correct
resolution, but many users don't know how to do that.
--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen(a)tmr.com>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot
9:29 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 11:04 -0700, Mike Wright wrote:
What I don't understand is that this display adapter has worked
beautifully in fc4, fc6, and fc8 installations.
Changes in Xorg, over time... The difficulty with a live CD is that
it's virtually fixed with the original software, no updates. It's not
uncommon to find that people who've installed an OS (to writeable
media), and had graphics problems, that they've gone away after a "yum
update".
--
[tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.21-78.2.41.fc9.i686
Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I
read messages from the public lists.
9:17 a.m.
Mike Wright wrote:
Hi all,
I've decided it was time to drink the KoolAid so I downloaded the "f10
Live CD", burned a bootable image, and hit reset. All in all pretty
impressive.
However, the screen resolution defaulted to 800x600, useless on a 22"
lcd display. In f->system->preferences->hardware->screen_resolution
there was only one selection available: 800x600. Aaargh! As a
work-around I copied over an xorg.conf file from another machine, did
the old init 3; init 5 routine and suddenly had a high resolution display.
What I don't understand is that this display adapter has worked
beautifully in fc4, fc6, and fc8 installations.
lspci reveals the card to be an nVidia Corporation NV5M64 [RIVA TNT2
Model 64/Model 64 Pro] (rev 15) (I know: nVidia = proprietary) but this
card is ancient and has been well supported for many, many years.
Now, a neophyte trying out this release would have no idea about
xorg.conf and would certainly not have a copy of it laying around. How
would they be able to handle this?
First, let me agree that the install does a dreadful job of picking screen mode.
It seems that after the install you find that the display hardware is
misidentified, and that changing that to "generic LCD" of suitable resolution
will solve the issue. You can then pick a resolution in the "System" part of the
menu, and after that set the resolution used in PREFERENCES.
The simple solution seems to be to hit TAB and edit the command line for install
to include something like "vga=0x318" or even "vga=ask" which get you
a menu of
all available resolutions. See my reply to Tom Lane on his text mode install
issue for an example of what the prompt looks like.
How the novice would know this I have no idea, but this has been discussed on
this list before.
--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen(a)tmr.com>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot
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9 comments
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participants (7)
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Bill Davidsen -
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David Boles -
Kevin Cummings -
Mike Wright -
Tim -
Tom Horsley