Widescreen Resolution Support

[Synergy]

Hi again!

I have searched these forums, and kinda found half my answer, but I am not competent enough (yet) to resolve this myself. Would appreciate any pointers here.

Ok.. So I've got 15 HP T5700 Thin Clients that I got cheap on eBay. Little did I know that the Windows drivers do not support widescreen... Ah... Sshhhhii.... So I moved to Linux!

Fortunately TinyCore saved my ass. I now have completely configured the OS how I like except for one issue.. The resolution. Knowing that in Windows the driver is unable support widescreen I tested several lightweight linux distro's, and found that the graphics card/monitor combo can happily support it. Currently Xvesa lists a small array of 4:3 resolutions but not my Native 1366x768 (@60 Hz). I tested using TC, DSL & PuppyLinux and I managed to get this resolution. I would now like that in TinyCore so I can sign off these computers as production worthy.

I'm assuming I need to switch from Xvesa to XOrg? Is this right? How do I do that? I have it installed (pre-req. for Citrix) but ctrl+alt+backspace > startx will re-load xvesa. Do I need a startup switch or to edit a config stating the video type to load??

I should maybe note that I need this all in a minimal install as I only have 250Mb total storage on these thin clients as I'm trying to avoid USB sticks in the back.

Thanks in advanced!

[Juanito]

If you have intel graphics you might be able to use 915resolution to get the resolution you need.

If not, you need to load the Xorg-7.7 extension and, with luck, it should have your native resolution confless.

[Synergy]

Err.. I may have broken it a little. Now I can't get a GUI, I just get Use a recommended mode displayed on the screen when running startx.

Doesn't look like I have installed XOrg (properly?) either as there is no /etc/X11 folder. I did install from Apps (which I can no longer open)..

Is there like a reset to defaults for xorg I can type to put me back in default.

By the way the graphics are ATI Rage XC

[Juanito]

You can download and load Xorg-7.7 from the console with "tce-load -iw Xorg-7.7"

The ati graphics driver is xf86-video-ati, but the default xf86-video-vesa, which is a dep of Xorg-7.7 will probably work.

[curaga]

That chip is too old for ati, it needs the mach64 driver.

tce-load -wi xf86-video-mach64

[Juanito]

except that nobody compiled that driver yet 

[curaga]

Well, it's available now for 4.x

[Synergy]

Brilliant.. I have my gui back.

I have run lspci -v
ATI Technologies Inc Rage XL (Rev 27) is the result on the graphics chip.

[Synergy]

Sorry to ask, but how do I get it from 4.x?

Also, Is the X11 folder supposed to be in /etc/X11??

[Juanito]

Code: [Select]

$ wget -c http://tinycorelinux.net/4.x/x86/tcz/xf86-video-mach64.tcz..but it's not certain to work with Xorg-7.7

If you need to use an xorg.conf you can create it in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

[Synergy]

Ok. So I have that file (xf86-video-mach64) here;
/mnt/sda1/tce/optional

I dropped back to console and ran ;
tce-load -i xf86-video-mach64

Code: [Select]

/etc/sysconfig/tcedir/optional/xf86-video-mach64.tcz: OK
So now I want to change the driver so it uses this one as there is no automatic selection of this driver on boot. I'm assuming I need to configure Xorg.

When running sudo Xorg -configure I get this;

Code: [Select]

Number of created screens does not match number of detected devices.
     Configuration failes.
(EE) Server terminated with error (2). Closing log file.
/var/log/Xorg.0.log contains nothing obvious... to me anyway.

The file xorg.conf contains multiple monitor entries. I can remove the 'unwanted' lines, edit in the resolution I wantand and test with;

Code: [Select]

Xorg -config xorg.conf.new -retroWorks.. Not in widescreen though..??
 and save it at /etc/X11/xorg.conf. I add that to the backup and reboot.

Though no fix and my mach64 gets unloaded again on reboot.

Any ideas how I can configure org past this error and get my widescreen back?? Also how can I keep mach64 loaded persistently?

[Juanito]

If the xf86-video-mach64 driver is compatible with Xorg-7.7, then it should be automatically chosen in preference to the xf86-video-vesa driver without the need for any configuring or configuration file.

Did you try "startx" and then looking at /var/log/Xorg.0.log to see which video driver was chosen?

[Synergy]

Ah ok.. Well LuPu (Puppy) definately used this mach64 driver successfully. I'm not sure which version of Xorg that was though.

mach64 is now in onboot list.

Result of startx in /var/log/xorg.0.log is;
http://pastebin.com/rqp8ptEA

line 91 +:

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[    83.928] (II) LoadModule: "vesa"
[    83.933] (II) Loading /usr/local/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so
[    83.935] (II) Module vesa: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[    83.936]    compiled for 1.14.2, module version = 2.3.2
[    83.936]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[    83.936]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 14.1
[    83.936] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa
[    83.937] (--) using VT number 2

[Juanito]

I just remembered that tc-4.x/Xorg-7.6 looks for the input/video drivers in a different location to tc-5.x/Xorg-7.7

You could try:

Code: [Select]

$ sudo cp /tmp/tcloop/xf86-video-mach64/usr/local/lib/X11/modules/drivers/mach64_drv.so /usr/local/lib/xorg/modules/drivers..and then (re)startx

I'll try and compile the latest version of xf86-video-mach64 for Xorg-7.7 in the next day or two.

[Synergy]

Thanks Juanito.

I tried that. No luck however. :-(