ubuntu-users Digest, Vol 19, Issue 3

[Alan McKinnon]

On Wednesday, 1 March 2006 16:31, Arjun Shankar wrote:
> > In practice its not that easy. When X.org starts it asks the card
> > and monitor for their specs (using DDC) and selects the best
> > resolution settings based on that info, and any instructions you
> > put in xorg.conf
> >
> > There's many variations on how the laptop hardware does the
> > switch: some simply take the video card output and switch it
> > between the internal monitor and the external port. Sometimes
> > there's a 3rd setting for both - most useful. There are other
> > possibilities, including two independant video cards, one card
> > with two independant outputs, etc, etc.
> >
> > When you switch outputs, X.org doesn't know about the change, and
> > continues using settings for the internal monitor. This might not
> > suit the external one. You don't describe the badness on the LG,
> > but I'd guess the laptop has a native resolution of say 1024x768
> > and the LG is say 1280x960. Running LCDs at the wrong resolution
> > looks awful.
> >
> > If I had copies of your xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log I might be able
> > to give more specific help
> >
> > --
> > Alan McKinnon
>
> Thanks for the reply.
> I forgot to mention the link that i got the tarball from. it is:
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/i855crt
> When I enabled the display using this driver, I set the display on
> my monitor to 1024*768 at 60Hz. Both, my LCD and the LG have the same
> as their maximum supported resolution.

OK, I see now what kind of setup this is. i855crt is an an unusual, 
and interesting project.

> However, the driver doesn't require editing it to add another
> monitor to the config. 

As a first step, plug the monitor into the notebook, press the 
relevant buttons to switch to external monitor (probably Fn-F5) and 
restart gdm. Don't just logout and log back in, that won't restart X 
itself. This will verify that your card and monitor play nicely and 
it actually works. Then start playing with the driver. There's 
nothing worse than trawling half the net for three days only to find 
out your hardware is broken...

From what I can make out, the driver is called i855crt. Your xorg.conf 
uses the i810 driver (which is the usual for that hardware), so as a 
wild guess I'd say you need to edit the third line:

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device"
	Driver		"i810"
	BusID		"PCI:0:2:0"
EndSection

> As to the bad display on the LG, it was 
> unusually green and unclear, and slightly grainy (I dont really
> think that matters, because finally, I will have to modify my
> xorg.conf, and steer clear of this driver) 

The sourceforge forum for this project is full of posts from people 
having exactly those symptoms. I'd recommend you take the problem 
there and see what luck you have. 

> Playing around with the 
> monitor's own
> colour/contrast/brightness settings didnt work.
> Somehow, there aren't too many detailed posts either in the ubuntu
> forum, or anywhere else about how to edit the conf file for an 855.
> How should I proceed? And if I am not looking hard enough before
> asking here, please do tell me.

You did the right thing asking here, and did the better thing by at 
least trying by yourself first. Fixing these kind of problems is 
hard, even for those who know their way around. The hardest part is 
recognizing what kind of problem you are dealing with and that's not 
always so easy

> Thanks again for looking through. My xorg.conf and Xorg.0.log are
> attached.
>
> Arjun Shankar

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five