Achieving native 1680x1050 resolution in Syncmaster 2253BW monitor
Recently I gave up on a couple of other distro's wherein I could not get the attached monitor to reach its native reolution of 1680x1050 pixels, which I had been able to see with a debian ditribution until its Nvidia video card broke. I retired that computer. The "new" computer is the troublesome one. Now I am trying Trisquel 7.0, and I cannot find anything on how to configure this Samsung SyncMaster 2253BW monitor. Its aspect ratio is an uncommon 8:5.
Please don't tell me I have to use another Nvidia video card ... it's as nonfree as they get, and difficult to install as well.
I am willing to switch video cards, however; the present one that came with this low-end HP 6430NX desktop PC is an S3 Graphics Ltd VT8375, a.k.a. ProSavage. The RAM is 2GB.
I am a translator!
almost no nvidia card will work properly on trisquel.
the same goes with ati.
integrated intel graphics cards work well!
S3 Graphics
That is not nVidia. That is, well, S3 Graphics! That company was manufacturing video cards (with no 3D acceleration I believe) in the 90s. It is possible that the card itself does not support the resolution you want! I do not think there is any independent effort to make a Linux driver for S3's cards. So, you must be stuck with what S3 contributed to Linux... if it ever contributed anything (otherwise you are use the generic "vesa" driver). Sorry.
Samsung (maker of the SyncMaster 2253BW) is of no help; explicitly - that's what they say.
Search on "VESA configuration" returns information of interest only to developers.
My "Displays" GUI lists only a few, lower resolutions.
Grub displays a very sharp, crisp extremely high resolution text menu that tells me that Grub knows how to set the screen resolution.
Plus, at least one video card could utilize the 2253BW's native resolution; that's the defunct Nvidia card from the discarded PC. That card is not an option here.
Searches on [1680x1050 +"video card" +linux -nvidia] seem to return lots of data on cards that don't work ...
Again, you do not have an nVidia card. You have a "S3 Graphics" that simply may not support such a high resolution (did you search its technical specifications?). If it actually does, then the Linux driver does not and, given the popularity of the brand, it is extremely improbable that an alternative driver exists.
In the end: either you acquire another card (an old nVidia card would be a good option) or you settle with the low resolution.
Not wanting to settle on less than the monitor's native 1680x1050 resolution, I waded through a great many video cards at Staples, eBay & MicroCenter and ordered an AMD Radeon R5 230, which has a semi-favorable free vs. proprietary drivers discussion here: http://riceball.com/d/content/radeon-r5-230-ubuntu-linux-13.
All the Intel chipsets seem to come with attached computer motherboards, and I don't want to end up with the proverbial farmer's axe (in the family for generations, with numerous replacement handles and heads).
I'll post my progress after the order arrives.
Bad idea. You should have chosen an old nVidia card as I told you. https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/geforce-8400gs-1gb-pci-express-20-video-card-gnulinux-full-low-profile-brackets for instance. Ubuntu includes proprietary firmware that both the free and the proprietary drivers use. Trisquel obviously does not include the proprietary firmware and you will get reduced functionalities (no 3D acceleration for instance) and maybe not even the full resolution for your screen!
If I were you, I would cancel the order right now.
You should have ordered a GeForce GT 610. That's a decent card when you just want to drive some screens. This card, unlike the Radeon R5 230, can work without proprietary firmware.
Now, when someone tells you something has “open source drivers”, ask them: “does it run without proprietary firmware in the kernel?”.
After trekking through the graphics-card wilderness, I came up with an R92LE-C3S (a.k.a. ATI Radeon 9200SE) which runs on the same generic driver as the HP 6430NX motherboard's built-in graphics. Hence, my desktop looks exactly the same as it did with the motherboard's video output. This is all I could find with a search for graphics cards with Intel chipsets. Ha. Still stuck with proprietary requirements. Blame my ancient motherboard.
Turns out that the first graphics card that I got wants a minimum of 450-watt power supply, so it's going back. An MSI GeForce GT610 has a different socket requirement that slipped past my radar. My old GeForce 6200 graphics card is indeed DOA.
Is there a straightforward way of acquiring the ATI/Radeon graphics driver so I can get round circles and not egg-shaped ones ? Anything I can get with sudo apt-get install ?
Thanks.
My 6200 is still serving me well.
Forgive me for being captain hindsight but I think you should've gone with that.
Attempting to answer my own questions:
> Is there a straightforward way of acquiring the ATI/Radeon graphics
> driver so I can get round circles and not egg-shaped ones ?
> Anything I can get with sudo apt-get install ?
Out of desperation I tried this series of commands:
> sudo add-apt-repository ppc:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
> sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati
[system said that xserver-xorg-video-ati is already installed]
And then I changed /etc/X11/xorg.conf thusly:
> Section "Device"
> # Identifier "ProSavage"
> Identifier "Radeon"
> Driver "radeon"
> # Option "vesa" "on"
> End Section
Alas, rebooting had no effect whatsoever. Same appearance as always, Sysytem Settings --> Displays still sees only the built-in graphics, and the monitor resolutions still list only generic settings, but none have my monitor's native 8:5 aspect ratio.
dmesg | tail reveals nothing.
Forget that GeForce 6200 - it's utterly dead and produces a jet black screen on my current installation of Trisquel 7 in my HP 6430NX. My present ATI/Radeon 9200 SE graphics card works great if you can tolerate egg-shaped circles and less-than-native resolution in my SyncMaster 2253BW monitor.
Moving on ... to the farmer's axe ... now I'm awaiting an Intel D865GLC mobo, which fits the DDR PC3200 unbuffered Non-ECC 2.6V RAM modules that I recently bought, and has two additional RAM modules of its own. Crucial was quite helpful in my effort to recycle that pair of 1GB RAM modules.
What's odd about the Radeon 9200 SE graphics card is that xorg.conf hasn't changed from its original detection of the HP 6430NX's integrated ProSavage chipset ... unless the mobo passes its signals right through a transparent add-on Radeon 9200 SE graphics card into the VGA cable that's plugged into the add-on card and not into the mobo. I tried the Trisquel Live DVD, which did detect the Radeon 9200 SE graphics card, but didn't offer any way of changing the resolution from what the mobo's integrated graphics offers.
Just where do I find the specific download of a Trisquel-compatible driver for this Intel D865GLC mobo's integrated graphics at the Intel.com website ? I can get close, but the only linux flavors that I see are SUSE, Red Hat, etc. Which of them are acceptable to the four freedoms of Trisquel ?
Until this afternoon, I was despondent and whined:
> Just where do I find the specific download of a Trisquel-compatible driver for this Intel D865GLC mobo's integrated graphics at the Intel.com website ?
... until a short while (about an hour) after the anticipated motherboard arrived. I swapped the various drives, transferred my two memory modules purchased for the HP 6430NX, hunted down an extra affixing screw for this slightly larger board, found all the appropriate sockets scattered hither & yon, and got it all together with nothing left over. The Intel D865GLC motherboard fit in place of the HP 6430NX's motherboard with only an extra screw hole, and there is even a socket for that, would you believe. After a short pause at the BIOS settings, Trisquel booted up with nary a complaint, and _voila_ ! got the desired resolution in the SyncMaster 2253BW monitor: 1680x1050. No additional drivers for which to search. Nice !
Thanks to all who steered me in the correct directions. Got it all done for half the $200+/- that *icro *enter would have charged me for their oft-advertised but not-in-stock Linux desktop model.
This Trisquel installation is now fully free, except for the three now-superfluous but functional graphics cards, one of which I can return.