Resolution problem with possible kernel connection [Solved]

[Fitzcarraldo]

With KMS, should you still have that vga=791 in the kernel boot line? I read somewhere that it should not be used (although that related just to the consoles/VTs if I recall correctly). Have just read the following Arch Linux Forums post; perhaps it is of help, although I'm not sure if he is just talking about the console: intel kms resolution problem in tty [solved] - Post #10.

Don't disable KMS, it is a requirement now. The right thing to do if your resolution is wrongly detected is to append the "video" option to your kernel. Example of this:

video=LVDS-1:1280x800

Our wiki says that if vga is appended the KMS will break, which is not really true, what happens is that vesafb is loaded but is overrided as soon as KMS kicks in. Still the right thing do to is to setup KMS to start as early as you want it, there are a few methods on the wiki. Then setup your resolution correctly as mentioned, if it's not autodetected properly.

I suppose in your case you would need to have: video=LVDS1:1440x900
(I'm assuming "LVDS1" as xrandr returned that, in your case.)

[joost]

I have to load i915.modeset=1 after acpi_backlight=vendor and not the other way round.

He does use KMS. besides there is no need to modeset because it is enabled by default.
The only thing you can do is disable it, and then it will not work.

Do not confuse things with using the opensource radeon kernel module. In that case you want to indeedly remove those lines as I wrote here: http://joostruis.wordpress.com/2011/01/ ... -catalyst/

[dunsurfin]

I suppose in your case you would need to have: video=LVDS1:1440x900
(I'm assuming "LVDS1" as xrandr returned that, in your case.)

I note that the refresh rate isn't added there. The addition I made after the "Kernel Mode Setting" article was video=LVDS1:1440x900@60 and that didn't work.
Can someone confirm that I'm doing this correctly as I add the relevant instruction at the end of the appropriate kernel line in grub.conf and before the line that starts "initrd"?
I shall try the instruction without the refresh this evening.

[dunsurfin]

Adding video=LVDS1:1440x900 made no difference I'm afraid.
What surprises me is that when I boot into the 2.6.38 kernel I appear to get the correct resolution until about 70% into the boot. The screen then goes to 1024 just before the login screen. When I shut down or restart the correct resolution appears to come back (but not if I logout). By "appears to" I mean that the splash screen becomes very clear and detailed and fills up the monitor.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Looks like a bug report to the Intel driver writers is your only remaining option. Until then, if you are not bothered about the eye candy, you could try using the VESA driver (xf86-video-vesa) instead of the Intel driver. You would need to install it and edit xorg.conf to have Driver "vesa" instead of Driver "intel". Perhaps that will give you the 1440x900 resolution.

[dunsurfin]

In the meantime I shall just continue to use the 2.6.35 kernel. I have just noticed that my video-intel driver is 2.14.901 (installed via entropy on 14-3-11) and it has been removed from portage. I may try using portage to go to an earlier version and see if that makes any difference. However, the problem first came up with kernel 2.6.36 which was before the 2.14.901 driver was released into entropy.

[Fitzcarraldo]

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$ eix xf86-video-intel
* x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel
     Available versions:  2.8.1 2.9.1 (~)2.10.0-r1 (~)2.11.0 2.13.0 2.14.0 2.14.901[1] {debug dri}
     Homepage:            http://xorg.freedesktop.org/
     Description:         X.Org driver for Intel cards

[1] "sabayon" /var/lib/layman/sabayon

Yes, now that you mention it, xf86-video-intel-2.14.0 via Portage would be an interesting experiment.

[dunsurfin]

Sadly that made no difference either. I need to get my facts together for that bug report.

[ReemZ]

Have you managed to solve it yet? One of the suggestions Fitz made in my thread was this:

I'm not on a Linux machine just at the moment, and can't open the tarball you posted in your bug report, so can't have a look at your xorg.conf. Try adding the following line in the Section "Monitor" in your xorg.conf:

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Option "Preferred Mode" "1600x900"

You might wanna try the same (obviously with the correct resolution for your machine though) as it did (and still does) work for me.

[Fitzcarraldo]

It's doubtful that would work for dunsurfin, ReemZ, because his machine does not even detect the mode 1440x900:

and with 2.6.38 I get:

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robin@robin-portable ~ $ xrandr
    Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 768, maximum 8192 x 8192
    LVDS1 connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 367mm x 23000mm
       1024x768       60.0*
       800x600        60.3     56.2
       640x480        59.9
    VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
    HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
    DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
    DP2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)