Any more ideas to improve font appearance?

[quiddity]

I use xrandr to adjust my display I created this bash script;

OK -- thanks. Perhaps I'm missing something, but that didn't work for me. I ran the script you gave in a terminal, replacing all your 1360x768 With my desired 1280x800. It gave me a wee Kdialog box saying `select screen resolution', with several options including 1280x800. But when I select that, the terminal returns the message:

xrandr: cannot find mode 1280x800


...and nothing else happens.

Am I missing something? Do I need to save the script somewhere, log out...?

[oshunluvr]

Yes, you're missing the mode. You have to create it first. I think in Simon's case, his doesn't select the correct mode. Whereas in yours - you have only one mode to select. Frankly, Simon's solution may be a little complicated for your case. Try these in a terminal:

xrandr --newmode "1280x800" 83.50 1280 1352 1480 1680 800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode DFP1 1280x800
xrandr --output DFP1 --mode 1280x800

I'm guessing at DFP1 being your connection. Before you do the above, run xrandr -q and see which connection your monitor is using. Could be DFP or VGA or CRT or LVDS or others. Substitute yours for DFP1 in the above. If this works, report back and we'll figure out the best place to put the commands.

[quiddity]

Yes, you're missing the mode. You have to create it first. I think in Simon's case, his doesn't select the correct mode. Whereas in yours - you have only one mode to select. Frankly, Simon's solution may be a little complicated for your case. Try these in a terminal:

xrandr --newmode "1280x800" 83.50 1280 1352 1480 1680 800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode DFP1 1280x800
xrandr --output DFP1 --mode 1280x800

I'm guessing at DFP1 being your connection. Before you do the above, run xrandr -q and see which connection your monitor is using. Could be DFP or VGA or CRT or LVDS or others. Substitute yours for DFP1 in the above. If this works, report back and we'll figure out the best place to put the commands.

OK, thanks. Something seems to have happened, but it hasn't quite worked.

When I first ran xrandr -q, it returned:

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1024 x 768, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 768
default connected 1024x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1024x768 76.0*

So I substituted `default' and ran xrandr --newmode "1280x800" 83.50 1280 1352 1480 1680 800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync. return:

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default

Then xrandr --addmode default 1280x800. return:

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default

Then xrandr --output default --mode 1280x800. return:

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
xrandr: Configure crtc 0 failed

...and no change. But now, xrandr -q returns:

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1024 x 768, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1280 x 800
default connected 1024x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1024x768 76.0*
1280x800 59.8


So it seems to have added a 1280x800 option (not sure where 59.8 comes from?) but not let me select it. Do I have to sub crtc 0?

[oshunluvr]

Weird. It just does not want to "see" that monitor. A couple things to try:

Add --gamma 1:1:1 to your xrandr command. IF this fails, you should try booting with nomodeset option once just to see if that helps. What's the brand and model number of this laptop?

xrandr --output default --gamma 1:1:1 --mode 1280x800

[oshunluvr]

Also, let's get more data:

sudo lshw -c video

[oshunluvr]

Honestly, the more I read the more it sounds like the driver. Have you tried the other driver? flgrx

[quiddity]

Thanks very much for your persistence in helping me. You'll be glad to know we have a solution!

I tried the xrandr with gamma etc; that didn't work. So I went to try the option of booting with nomodeset. However... when I went to edit Grub (at boot), I found that nomodeset was there already. So I deleted it and booted...

I am now looking at a crystal-clear display, and when I go to display settings, I have a range of options to choose from for resolution, including the optimal native one.

I've tried this a couple of times, so I'm confident that the solution is to delete nomodeset from grub permanently. I reckon I can work out how to do that from the internet!

In case it helps anyone else, this is a Dell Inspiron 1501 (old -- but why change if it works?)

Thanks so much -- I can't tell you how much of a (literal) headache looking a fuzzy screen was giving me. I'll mark the thread as solved, and try to tag it appropriately so that others with the same problem can find it. If you think I should append any more info to that end, let me know.

Cheers!

[oshunluvr]

Great! What a PITA. Go into /etc/grub/default and remove nomodeset there, then run update-grub

[quiddity]

Great! What a PITA. Go into /etc/grub/default and remove nomodeset there, then run update-grub

PITA indeed -- long way round -- and I'm afraid we're not quite there after all...

When I do that -- edit /etc/grub/default, run update-grub, and reboot -- the computer boots to a screen of coloured vertical lines and goes no further, which is a problem I remember hearing about.

The same happens if I edit grub on the fly, add nomodeset, and boot

But when I put things back as they were -- nomodeset in /etc/grub/default, and then delete nomodeset when booting -- things are fine!

To be clear, just so in case I'm being dumb: there's a line in /etc/grub/default that says:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nomodeset"

Should I comment that line, delete it, or just delete nomodeset from it? I've only tried the first -- I can't see it would make a difference, but what do I know.

So to sum up: I have a great workaround which involves me editing grub each time I boot. Editing grub permanently seems to cause more problems, though perhaps I'm doing it wrong. I'm happy as things are, if you can't be bothered to expend more effort on this. Editing grub every boot really isn't that much of a problem.

[Snowhog]

To be clear, just so in case I'm being dumb: there's a line in /etc/grub/default that says:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nomodeset"

Should I comment that line, delete it, or just delete nomodeset from it? I've only tried the first -- I can't see it would make a difference, but what do I know.

The line must be there, you just remove nomodeset from it so you have:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

[quiddity]

OK -- I was too quick to mark this is solved.

Sometimes, booting without nomodeset works (whether edited /etc/grub/config as per Snowhog's instructions, or at the one-time boot menu). When it does, the display resolution problem is solved.

But often, booting without it doesn't work -- I get stuck on a screen with vertical coloured lines, before getting to a splash screen or anything. The only way to boot reliably is to include nomodeset -- but then I have the resolution problem.

So we're in the region of a solution, but not there yet. It's both odd and annoying that the deleting-nomodeset thing works brilliantly sometimes, and not at all others.

I suppose some options are:

(1) Try other grub options;
(2) Try the other driver as suggested above.

[quiddity]

Try the other driver as suggested above.

Internet suggests this won't work:

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Hardware

Card is an Xpress 200, so I could only use a legacy Catalyst/flgrx driver if I was using a kernel <= 2.6.28 and Xserver <= 1.5. Which I don't want to do!

So: something to do with nomodeset or other grub options?

In answer to the earlier request for more info, sudo lshw -c video returns:

*-display UNCLAIMED
description: VGA compatible controller
product: RS482M [Mobility Radeon Xpress 200]
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
physical id: 5
bus info: pci@0000:01:05.0
version: 00
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=66 mingnt=8
resources: memory:c8000000-cfffffff ioport:9000(size=256) memory:c0100000-c010ffff memory:c0120000-c013ffff

[oshunluvr]

There are acpi specific options that sometimes make a difference, try acpi=off and noapic. You should also remove (rename) your xorg.conf so it's not interfering. If I had to guess, it's some combo of driver, xorg, and plymouth that's causing most of this.

Try booting without nomodeset and with "text". This should boot you to the command line. If not, let it boot, then go to tty1 and kill X.

Then run the lshw command and see if the results are different. If so, run sudo X --reconfigure to generate a new xorg.conf file for comparison (to see if xorg will now detect your video card).

One thing for sure- you are not the only one having trouble with that video card. There are dozens of distros with users complaining about this video chip set. Honestly you might have to go back to 12.04 until/unless this get fixed.

I'm sort of out of ideas at this point.

[oshunluvr]

There is a plymouth-disabler package. Don't know if that's part of the problem or not.

Could also be a display manager issue - removing lightdm and installing kdm might help too.

[quiddity]

Not surprised you're running out of ideas -- you've tried a few!

OK, so:

plymouth-disabler doesn't help

switching from lightdm to kdm doesn't help

acpi=off, nolapic don't help (tried in various combinations -- alone, with nomodeset, with radeon.modset.0)

I couldn't quite follow the instructions about booting with nomodeset and with text. When I tried replacing 'nomodeset' with `text' at grub menu, it booted to the same screen with coloured lines (not to a command line). It's impossible to do anything with that -- can't access bootlog, can't use tty1, so can't run lshw etc. If I try booting with nomodeset and text, it just boots normally, i.e. to the wrong resolution. Is there another way to do that? Am I doing it wrong?

I'm beginning to think you might be right about going back to 12.04... the really annoying thing is that I only really upgraded to deal with a separate issue about MTP support in 12.04 -- and that now works perfectly in 14.04! Sigh.