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On Mon, Mar 12, Dennis Gallien wrote:
Michael, you may already have this resolved, but if not just to clarify a couple details which may help . . .
Thank you for taking the time to explain the various types of drivers. I'll save the info for later use if/when I manage to get into this sort of muddle again. I stumbled on http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:ATI_drivers and followed the CLI instructions, followed by `aticonfig --initial`. It had its way with my xorg.conf file. Fortunately, it worked :-) I prefer to go with the FOSS drivers when possible, but for now, this gets me a useable system.
* radeon is a driver and a kernel module; it is the open source version for ATI and you need to check whether your card's chipset (the "rv") is supported by this driver
* the proprietary ATI driver is fglrx; it is also a kernel module. I haven't used an ATI card in a long while, I don't know its status. IIRC it's no longer supported. I would think there's an wiki page on it. But if you have an old card, it might be worth checking whether you can still compile it
* vesafb (the vesa framebuffer) is what is used by the kernel for graphical display at boot, it is compiled into the kernel so you won't see it as a module. It only supports the resolutions specified in the vesa standard, as specified in your kernel boot line "vga=". It is not used by X.
* vesa is an X server vesa driver. It's resolutions also are limited to the vesa standard.
* fbdev is the X server framebuffer driver. It supports an even narrower range of resolutions than vesa
* the X server determines the resolution by querying the monitor's EDID. Older monitors, and in particular laptops, often do not even have an EDID or what they have is broken. Even some newer ones, typically the cheapos. This is just plain negligence by the manufacturer. When X cannot find an EDID, it guesses. When X finds an EDID but it's bad, X may quite possibly use the wrong resolution. Consequently, you may need to tell X which resolution to use, and it needs to be one supported by the driver that X has selected or you have told X to use.
Start with find a driver that works with you card, forcing an 800x600 resolution just to get the graphical display working. Then work on forcing your monitor's native resolution and refresh rate (both together!), making sure that the driver you're using supports that.
Hope that helps a bit.
Michael -- Michael Fischer michael@visv.net -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org