Successful dapper drake install on Dell Inspiron 9400 Core Duo

[Derek Broughton]

spira_mirabilis wrote:

> 
> OK, I tried gtf and editing the xorg.conf. I tried a few times, in the
> monitor section, I also tried 75 and 30-60. These attempts caused me to
> be unable to start the X Server or enter KDE, so I went into "recovery
> mode" and reconfigured with dpkg to get back in.
> 
> 
> 
> Here is a sample (let me know if I'm doing this correctly!):

(not quite - sorry!)
>     
> 
>   gtf 1920 1200 60
> 
>   # 1920x1200 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 74.52 kHz; pclk: 193.16 MHz
>   Modeline "1920x1200_60.00"  193.16  1920 2048 2256 2592  1200 1201 1204
>   1242  -HSync +Vsync

OK, so now you need to put that line in the xorg.conf 
> 
> I don't fully understand all of that output ..:-k
> 
You don't need to, but the first line was a comment and the second is the
line that needs to be in xorg.conf.  The following is the correct Monitor
section:
 
  Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "Generic Monitor"
    Option              "DPMS"
    HorizSync   74.52
    VertRefresh 60
    # 1920x1200 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 74.52 kHz; pclk: 193.16 MHz
    Modeline "1920x1200_60.00"  193.16  1920 2048 2256 2592  1200 1201 1204
1242  -HSync +Vsync
  EndSection

This should be fine (assuming your screen really is capable of 1920x1200):

>   SubSection "Display"
   ...
>   Modes               "1920x1200_60.00" "1440x900"
>   EndSubSection

If that doesn't work, I'd try 1280x800 first, since it should certainly be
capable of that (again, use gtf to generate the modeline and add it to
xorg.conf), then try 1440x900.  I'd also leave the 4:3 ratio modes in
place - at least 1024x768 - in case you later want to access your laptop
via VNC or NX.  I use 1280x800 on my laptop screen, but 1024x768 via NX.
-- 
derek