boot splash screen displays at incorrect resolution

[Alex Peters]

My LCD monitor's native resolution is 1920x1080, but the Ubuntu boot splash is shown at 1280x1024. As a result, it is horizontally stretched.

Bug #563878 looks like it might be relevant, but it appears to document that a fix has been released. This fix does not seem to address the problem for my specific configuration.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: plymouth 0.8.2-2ubuntu28
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-13.21-generic 3.0.6
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-13-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Nov 1 20:52:17 2011
DefaultPlymouth: /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.plymouth
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427.1)
MachineType: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EP31-DS3L
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-13-generic root=UUID=a12d74a6-b20a-42a7-9458-2111a25de2fd ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 VESA VGA
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-13-generic root=UUID=a12d74a6-b20a-42a7-9458-2111a25de2fd ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: plymouth
TextPlymouth: /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-text/ubuntu-text.plymouth
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-15 (16 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 07/18/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
dmi.bios.version: F4
dmi.board.name: EP31-DS3L
dmi.board.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.board.version: x.x
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAwardSoftwareInternational,Inc.:bvrF4:bd07/18/2008:svnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:pnEP31-DS3L:pvr:rvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:rnEP31-DS3L:rvrx.x:cvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: EP31-DS3L
dmi.sys.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

It is likely that this is a bug in your BIOS, not in an Ubuntu package, and that there's nothing we can do about this. Plymouth can only display on a kernel framebuffer, and you are using the nvidia binary drivers, so the only interface we have available is the VESA one. If your laptop's VBE doesn't include a 1920x1080 mode, there's no way for us to put the display in this mode without using a native driver, and we can't use the native nouveau driver because you've elected to use the binary nvidia driver instead.

You can check what video modes are available in your BIOS by holding down shift at boot time to get to a grub menu, pressing 'c' for a console, and typing 'vbeinfo'. If there's no 1920x1080 mode there, then there's nothing we can do.

Reassigning this bug to grub2, which is the package that handles the VESA setup for us, in case this mode is available in the BIOS and we're somehow failing to set it.

[Alex Peters (alex-peters)]

This is the information that I receive from vbeinfo:

grub> vbeinfo
List of supported video modes:
Legend: P=Packed pixel, D=Direct color, mask/pos=R/G/B/reserved
Adapter 'Cirrus CLGD 5446 PCI Video Driver':
  No info available
Adapter 'Bochs PCI Video Driver':
  No info available
Adapter 'VESA BIOS Extension Video Driver':
  VBE info: version: 3.0 OEM software rev: 5.115
              total memory: 262144 KiB
  [list of video modes not including 1920x1080 omitted]
  EDID version: 1.3
    Preferred mode: 1920x1080
Adapter 'VGA Video Driver':
  No info available

From this I infer that the monitor's native resolution is being properly detected, but no matching mode is available.

Steve, from your earlier comment I understand that my options are as follows:

1. upgrade the BIOS in an attempt to address the possible BIOS bug
2. switch to "the native nouveau driver"

Sadly though, I do not know at this stage how to do either. Off to Google!

[Alex Peters (alex-peters)]

In an attempt to switch to the native nouveau driver, I have entered the Additional Drivers settings applet, clicked "Remove" on the active "NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver" and restarted the computer. The problem still persists; vbeinfo still does not report 1920x1080 as an available mode. I don't know if this rules out the proprietary NVIDIA drivers as a problem.

There are also no available BIOS upgrades for my particular motherboard.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Pavlo Verba (pavlo.s.verba)]

I am experiencing the same issue with on Ubuntu Maverick through Precise.

I would like to know, Alex Peter, whether you managed to resolve your issue or not?

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for grub2 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]