Video resolution

[dandaman]

Okay, my friends say linux is great blablabla. All i want to do is change the resolution. I have spent nearly 2 days trying to do this. I have edited the xorg adding modelines generated from kunbuntu site -didn't work
I have used a gui editor, didn't work
I tried reconfiguring with my resolution and many other resolutions, didn't work
I tried using vesa,nv,nvidia all of which didn't make a difference

I have a LCD monitor at 1680x1050@60. I have a nvidia geforce 8800gts. Somethign so simple is so insanely complicated. Everything else is working fine though which is good but all at 800x600 which is basically unusable.
Everytime i edit something, i restart and get black screen with a little blinking "_". I then do the ctrl,alt,f1 etc and get to the prompt and do the reconfigure again and it all works but i just can't live with 800x600.

ANY help would be much appreciated.

Oh and secondly, to boot properly i have to edit the line in grub upon startup and put in "noapic" on one of the lines. If i don't do this it won't start. So i edited the grub.list or watever and put it in (On the right line!). It gets past the error but now dosn't display anything except my mate the blinking "_". If i go into the line through startup and edit select edit then select 'b' for boot, it then works. No idea..

[MepisReign]

Re: Video resolution

All you have to do is install the nvidia driver typing on the Konsole:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx-new

Then at next boot type on the Konsole:

sudo kate /etc/X11/xorg.conf

under Device replace "nv" by "nvidia"

Reboot

Again open the konsole and type:

sudo nvidia-settings

There do all the settings that you need, hit Apply and then hit Save to X Configuration File

There u go, that must work

Regards,

MepisReign

[dandaman]

Re: Video resolution

Is this normal after using kate to edit it from nv to nvidia?

daniel@dbw:~$ sudo kate /etc/X11/xorg.conf
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 154
Major opcode: 143
Minor opcode: 3
Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 154
Major opcode: 143
Minor opcode: 3
Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 154
Major opcode: 143
Minor opcode: 3
Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 154
Major opcode: 143
Minor opcode: 3
Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
kbuildsycoca running...
DCOP Cleaning up dead connections.
kdecore (KProcess): WARNING: _attachPty() 11
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 154
Major opcode: 143
Minor opcode: 3
Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device
X Error: BadDevice, invalid or uninitialized input device 154
Major opcode: 143
Minor opcode: 3
Resource id: 0x0
Failed to open device

[dandaman]

Re: Video resolution

Okay i followed your instructions (thanks heaps by the way) I changed to nvidia etc. The monent x started to load the monitor went out of range. So i rebooted and went back through and reconfigured xorg to default and got back in. This time weirdly i have 1280x1024. Still not what i wanted to MUCH better. This is using vesa not nv or nvidia.

[MepisReign]

Re: Video resolution

Ok, this is an example of my Xorg file, please check it and see if you can see something suspicious on yours

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder26) Mon Feb 26 23:38:28 PST 2007

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Envision EN7220"
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 55.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 7900 GS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "metamodes" "1280x1024 +0+0; 1280x1024_75 +0+0; 1024x768 +0+0; 800x600 +0+0; 640x480 +0+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

[dandaman]

Re: Video resolution

OKay... I just copied yours accross cos i'm slack, It worked perfectly, i obviously changed some of the settings like reslution and stuff. Worked fine, still couldn't get my prefered resolution. OpenGl games worked so yea i was happy. After turning it off and back on later, it did not come up with anything again so i reconfigured the xorg and then was back to where i started. EXCEPT for some reason i get a 'KDE panel error' on startup now. There is no 'taskbar' at the bottom or top!?!?!?! I thought straight away if i reinstall the KDE package that may fix it so i did that and now i get the higher res (not the one i wanted) but still no 'KDE panel'. Very stange. I am back on VESA with default settings. Oh and now my sound card works!?!?!? So yea im pretty damn confused as i thought everything was sorta working.

Again thanks for helping mate.

[cjnkns]

Re: Video resolution

To add to this topic -

I was going to install the new nvidia drivers and the paragraph says that if you have an older GeForce you may need the legacy package but it does not
specify what legacy means? How would I know if my Geforce is considered legacy?

Thanks...

[askrieger]

Re: Video resolution

NVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x/X.Org 'new' driver
These XFree86 4.x/X.Org binary drivers provide optimized hardware acceleration
of OpenGL applications via a direct-rendering X Server and supports the newer
GeForce, nForce and Quadro families of NVIDIA chipsets. AGP, TV-out and
flat panel displays are also supported.

If you have a TNT, TNT2, or older GeForce, you may need the nvidia-glx-legacy
package instead of this one. If you have a GeForce4, you may need the nvidia-glx
package.

From the package descriptin.

[cjnkns]

Re: Video resolution

Ya I read that guess maybe I am not understanding if they consider my nvidia geforce 6800go a legacy card nor not
Because it just mentions that you may need the legacy driver for older geforce cards, but doesn't specify what is considered legacy.

[dandaman]

Re: Video resolution

Okay, found that i canceled a KDE update (Dont do this!) KDE is now screwed. I installed Gnome and am now running that. I think i prefer it! quite nice. BUT still unable to use my graphics card. got as far as removing everything to do with nvidia, starting again. install the kernels(glx - common - new), install the driver(glx new) and then reboot, starts up and say s unable to start x server because can't find nvidia kernels OR that I don't have a nvidia card. I can't believe linux is so crap but i can't let it beat me. Sorry it's not crap, its quite nice, just this is intensly complicated. - has taken nearly 4 days now just to install a video driver. pretty lame i think. THere should be a single program which detects your video card, then goes online and gets everything you need for that card, downloads, installs, DONE. Sorta like windows.....

[dandaman]

Re: Video resolution

Thanks for your help guys. I have officially given up.

I got it! I actually installed the nvidia drivers and restarted and it worked! Had my resolution and everything. Tried it today and found grub lost my boot details and decided to chuck errors. had to use the boot cd to edit it. got that working and guess what. Xorg dosn't work now. says that the kernels don't match, same error i had before. So i got the new kernels AGAIN, then xorg chucked a spasm and would only display a black screen, and it wouldn't accept ctrl + alt + f1-f8 or watever. So i gave up.

Had high hopes for Linux but turned out to be a dud for me. Have deleted its partition and now getting rid of grub. Going back to vista which looked alot nicer anyway ;-)

[Ant2ne]

Re: Video resolution

Ahh the dreaded xorg.conf hurdle. I too spent days figuring this part out. Trying to get to my native resolution. There should be a good tutorial OR a graphical applet for configuring this file. The Applet could ship on the live CD. Even recently I've made some posts about configuring this file.

Have deleted its partition and now getting rid of grub. Going back to vista which looked alot nicer anyway ;-)

He never got beryl installed. 8)

[dandaman]

Re: Video resolution

I agree. the display is the most vital part of an OS. If its at the wrong res on the now standard LCD's, this causes eye strain and dodgy stretched/pixelated display. I mean if a user can't make the resolution something different easily, then thats a usability flaw. But then again only programmers or techno geeks would be using linux so i guess it suits them.

Myself i bought a mac the other day. Puts every other OS to shame i think. Although it does benifit from having a set parameter of devices that are known to the OS so theres not really any compatibility issues straight off the shelf. But its bloody awesome! Looks beautiful, does everything you would want it too. Very easy to use! Take abit of getting used to but man feels so dodgy coming back to vista afterwards. feels like your going back in time.

I think in the end linux isn't for the average windows user, myself being a avid computer enthusiest studying IT as UNI didn't have a chance of configuring some simple things on LINUX. maybe in a couple of years it might threaten windows but its got a long way to go considering most users of windows don't know much and are definatly not prepared to spend days trying to fix simple things. So they will go for windows probably as most other people have windows (although would be missing out on a mac which is probably better for them). No way they would go to the hassle of downloading a certain distro, figuring out how to partition the drives properly for it to work, then having to use the Konsole to change the resolution lol. Is a far cry from even XP.

Can you tell i'm annoyed at wasting my time? ;-)

[XstatyK]

Re: Video resolution

Beryl was fun at first but now I hardly load it up anymore. I've seen quite a few people that are in a hurry to get linux installed running with full Beryl effects and then get frustrated when they figure out that they have to configure the video driver which for alot of people means installing the proprietary driver, (that includes me) But for window users that are hoping to jump in and get to have all that eye candy usually they leave dissapointed. And it seems that ATI isn't as easily configured as Nvidia. I'm glad dandaman got a Mac, they have some purrdy graphics too! (but it comes at a price)