XFree86 screen configuration

**tola** · 05-28-2003, 04:10 PM

My first post here.

After my HDD install everything worked fine but the resolution set by Knoppix was far too high for me to see anything properly on my 14" CTX monitor.

I ran the kXConfig in my KDE desktop ("Advanced XFree86 Configuration") It displayed the Monitor settings, keyboard settings and pointer settings correctly to what Knoppix had correctly detected and the Video card was claimed to be of type "Generic Versa". I tried to change the screen resolution to 800x600, saved and restarted X. However, the resolution I ended up with was very low, I think 640x480 and the clock wouldn't fit on the taskbar! After this point it seemed to be stuck on this resolution and whatever resolutions or colour depths I tried it always went to 640x480 whenever I restarted X. I think this might be to do with the generic graphics card driver.

I got the graphics card second hand but it says "S3 Trio64 V2/DX" on one of the chips so I tried the "S3 Trio 3D/2X" and "S3 Trio3D" and "Generic s3virge" drivers, none of which worked and X refused to start.

I booted using the CD-ROM again and I overwrote the XF86Config and XF86Config-4 files on the hard disk with the ones that Knoppix generated so I was back where I started as I'd rather have the very high resolution that the very low one that the manual config keeps forcing.

Is the problem simply that my graphics card is not supported? And if so what setup is Knoppix using to achieve a very high resolution (about 1024x76

and can I use the same settings but modify them slightly to 800x600?

Here are dumps of the appropriate parts of the config files generated by Knoppix...

XF86Config==================

Code:

# Auto-generated by mkxf86config

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "Monitor0"
	VendorName	"CTX"
	ModelName	"CTX1451"
#	HorizSync    28.0 - 78.0 # Warning: This may fry very old Monitors
	HorizSync    28.0 - 96.0 # Warning: This may fry old Monitors
	VertRefresh  50.0 - 76.0 # Very conservative. May flicker.
	# These are the DDC-probed settings reported by your monitor.
	# 1280x1024, 75.0Hz; hfreq=79.98, vfreq=75.03
	ModeLine "1280x1024"	135.00 1280 1296 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
	# 1024x768, 60.0Hz; hfreq=48.36, vfreq=60.00
	ModeLine "1024x768"	 65.00 1024 1048 1184 1344  768  771  777  806 -hsync -vsync
	# 640x480, 75.0Hz; hfreq=37.50, vfreq=75.00
	ModeLine "640x480"	 31.50  640  656  720  840  480  481  484  500 -hsync -vsync
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "My Video Card"
    VendorName    "Unknown"
    BoardName     "Unknown"
#     TextClockFreq  22.175
EndSection

Section "Device"
  Identifier    "fbdev"
  VendorName    "Unknown"
  BoardName     "Unknown"
EndSection


# Standard Server
Section "Screen"
    Driver      "svga"
    Device      "My Video Card"
    Monitor     "Monitor0"
    Subsection  "Display"
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort 0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection

# Accel. Server(s)
Section "Screen"
    Driver      "accel"
    Device      "My Video Card"
    Monitor     "Monitor0"
    Subsection  "Display"
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort 0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection

# Fallback
Section "Screen"
    Driver      "vga16"
    Device      "My Video Card"
    Monitor     "Monitor0"
    Subsection  "Display"
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "Screen"  
  Driver        "fbdev"
  Device        "fbdev"
  Monitor       "Monitor0"
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth       32
    Modes       "default" 
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth       24
    Modes       "default" 
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth       16
    Modes       "default" 
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth       15
    Modes       "default" 
  EndSubSection
  SubSection "Display"
    Depth       8
    Modes       "default" 
  EndSubSection
EndSection

XF86Config-4================

Code:

# Auto-generated by KNOPPIX mkxf86config

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Monitor0"
	Option	"DPMS"	"true"
	VendorName	"CTX"
	ModelName	"CTX1451"
#	HorizSync    28.0 - 78.0 # Warning: This may fry very old Monitors
	HorizSync    28.0 - 96.0 # Warning: This may fry old Monitors
	VertRefresh  50.0 - 76.0 # Very conservative. May flicker.
	# These are the DDC-probed settings reported by your monitor.
	# 1280x1024, 75.0Hz; hfreq=79.98, vfreq=75.03
	ModeLine "1280x1024"	135.00 1280 1296 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
	# 1024x768, 60.0Hz; hfreq=48.36, vfreq=60.00
	ModeLine "1024x768"	 65.00 1024 1048 1184 1344  768  771  777  806 -hsync -vsync
	# 640x480, 75.0Hz; hfreq=37.50, vfreq=75.00
	ModeLine "640x480"	 31.50  640  656  720  840  480  481  484  500 -hsync -vsync
EndSection

Section "Device"
	### Available Driver options are:-
# sw_cursor is needed for some ati and radeon cards
        #Option     "sw_cursor"
        #Option     "hw_cursor"
        #Option     "NoAccel"
        #Option     "ShowCache"
        #Option     "ShadowFB"
        #Option     "UseFBDev"
        #Option     "Rotate"
	Identifier  "Card0"
# The following line is auto-generated by KNOPPIX mkxf86config
	Driver      "vesa"
	VendorName  "All"
	BoardName   "All"
#	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen0"
	Device     "Card0"
	Monitor    "Monitor0"
	DefaultColorDepth 16
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     1
		Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     4
		Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     8
		Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     15
		Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     16
		Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     24
		Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     32
		Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
	Mode 0666
EndSection

Sorry about the length of this post but I'm trying to give you as much information as I can.

Thanks for your time, and please be gentle with me, I'm a newbie

tola ^/.

**RockMumbles** · 05-28-2003, 05:53 PM

Is the problem simply that my graphics card is not supported?

Not with X 4.x, but it is supported by using X 3.3.6, so try this:

Boot your cd with the following cheat codes:

knoppix vga=normal screen=800x600 xserver=XF86_SVGA

see how your video works, if it works OK, then save the XF86Config-4 file to your hd in /etc/X11 (you should back up your existing file just in case), then reboot to you hd install.

HTH

rock

**tola** · 05-28-2003, 07:17 PM

Originally Posted by RockMumbles

Not with X 4.x, but it is supported by using X 3.3.6, so try this:

Boot your cd with the following cheat codes:

knoppix vga=normal screen=800x600 xserver=XF86_SVGA

see how your video works, if it works OK, then save the XF86Config-4 file to your hd in /etc/X11 (you should back up your existing file just in case), then reboot to you hd install.

Thanks for the help!

Typing

Code:

knoppix vga=normal screen=800x600 xserver=XF86_SVGA

works but everything is huge and colours are grainy, infact the icons and panel at the bottom are the same size as if I type

Code:

knoppix vga=normal screen=640x480 xserver=XF86_SVGA

and I don't have a clue why!

If I type

Code:

knoppix vga=normal screen=1024x768 xserver=XF86_SVGA

the resolution is so high that I can't read a thing! I seem stuck between two extremes and short of getting a bigger monitor there seems little I can do!

One other odd thing is that when Knoppix boots off the CD-ROM it detects my graphics card precisely right, S3 Trio64 V2/DX but the graphics card is not mentioned in the configuration tool in XWindows along with the other S3 Cards.

Is there anything else that can be done?

tola ^/.

**rickenbacherus** · 05-29-2003, 12:40 AM

Try adding this to your boot arguments:

Code:

xmodule=s3

**garyng** · 05-29-2003, 01:01 AM

Have you tried using the original configuration detected by knoppix(the first XF86Config-4) but change the lines :

Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

to Modes "800x600" "640x480"

Seems that the driver does support your card at the highest resolution so I can't see why it cannot be done for 800x600, may be all you need is another ModeLine.