[ubuntu-x] packages needing updates and other stuff

[Bryce Harrington]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 08:23:50AM +0530, shirish wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 2:03 AM, Bryce Harrington <bryce at canonical.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 08:52:36PM +0500, shirish wrote:
> 
> <snipped>
> 
> >  > 2. Using Screen Resolution while I'm able to change the resolution I'm
> >  > not able to change the refresh-rate, why is that ?
> >
> >  There can be a few reasons for that, but it's usually a function of your
> >  monitor, not your video card.  LCD's, for instance, really only work at
> >  60 Hz.  (I've seen some that advertise several rates "around" 60.)  Same
> >  is true for laptop panels.
> 
> mine is a 17" philips CRT
> 
> >  One thing you can do is run either 'sudo ddcprobe' or 'sudo
> >  get-edid|parse-edid', which displays what your monitor reports.  You can
> >  use this to see exactly what refresh rates *should* be supported.  This
> >  info is also present in your Xorg.0.log, and sometimes it gives clues
> >  why the X server might ignore some of the available options (maybe they
> >  don't fit with the graphic card's capabilities, or with other settings
> >  in xorg.conf, etc.)
> 
> Ah ok, attaching the file. Which leads to the next question as to what
> is the difference between timing and ctiming as shown in the ddcprobe
> ?

I think timing is like standard VESA timings, whereas ctiming is an
extended timing info (non-standard manufacturer-defined resolutions).
Sometimes there is also a dtiming section.  For some (most) monitors
there is also a 'preferred timing' to indicate what the monitor's "best"
resolution is.
 
> Another thing is this the correct way to understand what u guys are
> doing? My understanding of the  bulletproof-X tool is that it uses
> quite a few of the tools to know how things are set up and try to come
> up with some workable solutions.

No, the bulletproof-x tool actually is more of an override mechanism for
when all those tools aren't working.  It pops you into one of the
standard vesa modes, using the vesa driver (which in theory all video
cards ought to support... but some cards like ATI have not supported
vesa well historically), and lets you override the stock Xorg settings,
using some database-derived information.

We used to use ddcprobe and various other tools to guess at monitor
etc. settings, but those were found to be hard to maintain and often
came up with incorrect guesses.  This tool framework is no longer in use
in Hardy (Debian gets the credit for doing most all the cleanup work),
as all the logic for figuring out display configuration has been moved
into the X server proper, where it can be maintained more consistently.
 
> >  > This is the stuff I have
> >  >
> >  > shirish at Mugglewille:~$ lspci
> >  > 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE
> >  > DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 03)
> >  > 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation
> >  > 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 03)
> >  >
> >  > shirish at Mugglewille:~$ aptitude show xserver-xorg-video-intel |grep Version
> >  > Version: 2:2.2.1-1ubuntu6
> >  >
> >  > Lastly, it would be nice if you would blog more often at
> >  > http://bryceharrington.org/drupal/blog/1 ;)
> >
> >  Thanks, nice to know someone's reading!!  :-)
> >
> >  I'll try to blog more frequently.  Often I don't know what to say!
> 
> This one should be one of the most easiest. Right from telling about
> the tools which should be used by users to give info. to filing good
> bug reports (so your job is easier) to thoughts about tools (like
> dccprobe) and others and what could be done to improve on them to make
> our lives/job easier.
>       Also at points in time, if there is rant about a particular
> device whose drivers are not open-sourced that would also make for a
> good blog entry. All of which would make us, the users have a better
> understanding of what to buy or not as well as how to help u to help
> our own selves ;)

Cool, good ideas, I've put these on my blogging todo list.  I certainly
can essay on about some of these things (esp. about testing).  I bet I
could give a whole blog post just on how to read Xorg.0.log files.

Bryce