Feisty doesn't recognize 17" LCD screen

[jerrylamos]

Feisty Herd 3, 4, 5 booting CD Live comes up in 1024x768 on a 17" LCD screen instead of 1280x1024x24. Looking at /etc/X11/xorg.conf the LCD is identified as an Elographics Touch Screen, whatever that is. This is the bug, wrong identification of monitor.

Booting up in safe graphics mode correctly identifies Hanns.G HC174 screen however response is noticeably slow, on an IBM NetVista 2GHZ Pentium 4 with integrated Intel 82845 video adapter. Especially annoying is the slow screen ripple with mouse scroll wheel.

To investigate the bug I've tried CD Live versions of PCLinuxOS (which this is at the moment), Puppy Linux, and Simply Mepis. All three of these Linux competitors to Ubuntu come right up in 1280x1024 with crisp, sharp, fast screen response. Even little DSL (Damn Small Linux, 48MB) correctly gets the screen resolution right but is admittedly a little slow.

All these are "open source" so the code to properly identify the LCD monitor and screen resolution is public.

For Ubuntu to get wider usage, it should at least be equal to the current competition, if not Best of Breed. These larger screens are dropping in price and becoming more widely available.

Cheers, Jerry Amos

[tokj (tokj-deactivatedaccount)]

Hello

If you reconfigure the Xserver and select the proper resolution it works? You can do this also by editing xorg.conf

Regards

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

what does 'xresprobe $DRIVER' say? (substitute with the driver you are using)

[jerrylamos (jerrylamos)]

Well, I like the Ubuntu community and would like to see ubuntu more widely used. There's the stated principal that Ubuntu should "just work". Safe graphics mode doesn't cut it because of very poor response to scroll wheel.

I can get the screen to run just fine two ways:
1. Ubuntu herd 5: Ctrl-Alt-F1, killall gdm, sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, driver i810, 65536 KB, auto detect monitor. Every time I boot CD Live. Oof.

2. Run PCLinuxOS or Simply Mepis. Much easier for more people to do. Same hardware.

Since the latter two are open source, it should be possible to code Ubuntu to do the same. I get the impression that Ubuntu's problem is determining the 65536 KB memory size. How do the other Linux distro's do it?

By the way, xresprobe i810 on Herd 5 results in:
grep /tmp/xprobe.7811/xorg.log No such file or directory

Cheers, Jerry

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

could you attach your /var/log/casper.log, Xorg.0.log and xorg.conf from the live-session.

[jerrylamos (jerrylamos)]

Here's logs as requested. Any more info or things to try to get Ubuntu CD Live to run "out of the box" let me know.

Thanks, Jerry

p.s.: I didn't look at similar logs on PCLinuxOS and/or Simply Mepis but could do if the info would be of any interest. They get the screen resolution as 1280x1024 vs. Ubuntu's 1024x768.

[jerrylamos (jerrylamos)]

Would someone please explain what's going on?

I just downloaded Freespire Alpha, which is based on Feisty Alpha.

Screen comes up in 1280x1024x24, 17" LCD with Intel 845 graphics chip. Looks great.

Feisty itself, 20070316, comes up in 1024x768, coarse colors.

How come, on the same hardware, all these Linux distros support high resolution except Feisty: PCLinuxOS, Freespire (based on Feisty), Simply Mepis (again Ubuntu base), Puppy, DSL, ...

What's wrong with this picture? There are 5 computers on this LAN, and three of them have Intel 845 type graphics chip. There have got to be tons of them out there. Is there any plan for Ubuntu to support Intel 845 like the others do?

Thanks, Jerry Amos

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Sorry, I looked at your logs now. It seems that the configure scripts have a special case for your chipset, and thinks that the display is a Elographic screen and forces 1024x768 on it. This is obviously wrong. I'll look into it, remember seeing another report about it.

[jerrylamos (jerrylamos)]

Thanks for taking a look. In case you don't have a similar configuration let me know if I can help test anything out.
Cheers, Jerry

[jerrylamos (jerrylamos)]

I found a case of Ubuntu crashing with Intel graphics card in a generally complimentary article:

http://www.osnews.com/story.php/17505/Ubuntu-Feisty-Fawn-Desktop-Linux-Matured

It's a brand new Dell Inspiron with 1440x900 screen. The description sounds much like the problem I have.

Cheers, Jerry

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

nope, that's a different issue, yours is pretty simple :)

this is from xserver-xorg.postinst:
-----------------
    # special cases to no run xresprobe on this combinantion and set a sane known default

    if which dmidecode >/dev/null 2>&1; then
      if [ "$ARCH" != "ia64" ]; then
        if [ "$DEVICE_DRIVER" = "i810" ]; then
            if [ "$DEVICE_IDENTIFIER" = "Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device" ] && \
               [ -n "$(dmidecode | grep NCR)" ]; then
              PROBE_DUMP="$(echo -e "res: 800x600\nid: 3M Touchscreen")"
            fi
            if [ "$DEVICE_IDENTIFIER" = "Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics De
vice" ] && \
               [ -n "$(dmidecode | grep IBM)" ]; then
              PROBE_DUMP="$(echo -e "res: 1024x768\nid: Elographic Screen")"
            fi
        fi
      fi
    fi
------------
that's why you get the Elographic Screen with a crappy resolution...

[jerrylamos (jerrylamos)]

Timo, thanks for finding the source of the incorrect monitor selection and resolution.

The Ubuntu derivative Simply Mepis 6.0 (open source) has those same lines in its xserver-xorg.postinst, however its /etc/X11/xorg.conf is strikingly different than that on Feisty 20070320. It doesn't identify "Intel" or "Hanns.G HC174" using instead generic names like "Card0" and "ATImonitor", however the resulting driver, hsyc, vsync, resolution, and color depth are right for this 1280x1024 configuration. Most other lines are different as well.

I tried Simply Mepis on a Thinkpad R31 which is in fact 1024x768 with an Intel graphics chip, and again the driver, hsync, vsync, resolution, and color depth were right for that machine using again the names "Card0" and "ATImonitor".

I've no idea what code Simply Mepis and Ubuntu use when they boot up, however since the xorg.conf are so different seems to me the code must be quite different also.

Any ideas on Ubuntu getting the correct resolution?

Thanks, Jerry

[jerrylamos (jerrylamos)]

Hardware 2GHZ Celeron IBM Think Centre, 384MB, Intel 845G video 64MB grapics aperture with 15" LCD Sony SDM S51R 28-61kHz max Horizontal, 48-75 vertical.

CD Live Feisty 20070320 booted up to the Xwindow cursor point and then the screen went black, Feisty crashed, no keyboard response, power off time.

Running in "safe graphics mode" scroll wheel rippled slowly and coasted. CD Live Simply Mepis ran fine, 1024x768x32, fast and crisp.

xorg.conf in Feisty safe graphics mode showed Vesa driver and monitor Sony S51R. Simply Mepis used i810 driver and generic name ATImonitor, with correct resolution and scan frequencies.

Any ideas? Jerry.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

could you install this package:

http://users.tkk.fi/~tjaalton/dpkg/xserver-xorg_7.2-0ubuntu10_all.deb

and run 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg' after it has installed. Then attach your xorg.conf.

[jerrylamos (jerrylamos)]

I happened to have Xubuntu 20070329 up when I read your request. At boot time, xorg.conf looked just like the ones attached previously in this bug. After posting this note I'll try a killall gdm and startx to see what happens.

Thanks! Jerry

[jerrylamos (jerrylamos)]

After install of
http://users.tkk.fi/~tjaalton/dpkg/xserver-xorg_7.2-0ubuntu10_all.deb
and sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
I did ctrl-alt-F1
sudo killall gdm
sudo startx
screen came right up, sure looks like 1280x1024. Amazing!
Xubuntu called the display resolution "default".
Let me try Ubuntu next.
Thanks, Jerry

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Wonderful, the xorg.conf looks like it should. I'll upload xorg tomorrow. Thanks for testing!

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

fixed by this upload:

 xorg (1:7.2-0ubuntu10) feisty; urgency=low
 .
   * debian/xserver-xorg.postinst.in:
     - Move the special case of elographics after xresprobing, so we can
       check if PROBE_DUMP is empty, and only then use the special case.
       (LP: #89590)
   * debian/scripts/vars.*
     - add the intel and -modesetting drivers as a substitute for -i810.
       Taken from Debian. (LP: #80417)

[jerrylamos (jerrylamos)]

17" LCD 1280x1024 recognized successfully by Kubuntu resync 20070402. Kudo's! Works fine! Of course, I don't know if any other configurations got affected adversly. Xorg.conf and it is exactly right, listing the correct driver i810, and the several screen resolutions the monitor supports. See attachment. The Kubuntu menu lists the driver i810, then just lists the monitor as plug and play. Xorg.conf shows make & model correctly.

Now if Ubuntu gets down from Oversize I can try that too, however my experience is X, K, Ubuntu all three do the same screen recognition.

From my standpoint if this change is permanent then the bug as originally reported is fixed, whoever has authority to mark the bug appropriately.

Thanks much! Jerry