Screen resolution change in Ubuntu ... how did I miss Rob using linux?? glad to hear you got it working... I shoulda checked here sooner (not that I could ha ...

abf · 03-16-2007, 03:49 PM

ubuntu is actually not that highly optimized (well..at least the i386 version) so maybe its just you....or maybe the ppc version really better, wouldn't know since i never ran linux on ppc.

that said, automatix won't help you setup video since it only has an option for nvidia, not ati. to get ati you need to go to synaptic and install fglrx-ati or ati-drivers-fglrx or something along those lines....can't remember the exact file name. i believe the newer versions of the ubuntu package automatically mod xorg.conf (do alt+ctrl+backspace to restart X) or better yet reboot the computer so it loads all the modules as it should.

then if resolution is still wrong go to xorg.conf and change the res there:

Quote:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Generic Video Card"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
EndSection

bmwrob · 03-16-2007, 04:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abf

i never ran linux on ppc.

This is a Windows machine, not a Mac. And maybe it is just me - thanks very much.

BIGEE1212 · 03-16-2007, 05:25 PM

Nah, you'd be surprised that Ubuntu actually is one of the slower distributions (average speed) compared to some others such as Vector or Gentoo. It probably "flies" for you becuase it is so fast compared to Windows.
About Automatix, they have been having website problems for a few weeks. I was just on there yesterday and it was working, but it has been hit or miss. Make sure you get it installed properly before the site goes down. Once you have the program you can install all your apps (ATI driver, CD/DVD burning programs, media codecs, Azureus, Frostwire, google earth, and a bunch of other programs that you most users use).
A really great place to learn where to install things manually (it has been said that automatix breaks your system, but i still use it) is www.ubuntuguide.org
I would check it out, it will install pretty much anything you need. It also has a guide to install the ATI driver if you want to do that manually (which i suggest).
I would install ATI driver manually, and use automatix for everything else.

Good Luck

bmwrob · 03-16-2007, 09:22 PM

I've been trying to get Automatix to work since the earlier post where it was first suggested to me - I'll keep trying. And I've tried several times to install the ATI drivers manually, but it seems that I'm just to dumb to get it right. LOL

I've never had so much trouble doing something which I'd have thought would be easy. Guess I need to do some more reading. Except for everything I've tried relating to the resolution, the OS seems to be working well. I don't think I've damaged anything yet.

Seablade · 03-17-2007, 06:33 AM

Heh in your spare time grab a CD of ELive(Development Version) and burn it. If the live CD works(JUst pop it into your cd drive and reboot, it'll boot directly off thee CD) go ahead and install it in place of Ubuntu. It'll definitely move a bit faster, and has the option of setting up the proprietary drivers by default I believe.

It is not so much a matter of being 'dumb' for linux. It is a matter of getting used to how Linux operates. Once you are used to that, trust me most things will be much easier. In the meantime, exactly what is happening that you are having problems with? Trust me when I say most of us can help you get it installed, but posting up with detailed information is always a must.

To summarize the steps...

0. BACKUP your xorg.conf. Just make a copy of it you can restore to the original location to get back your original and somewhat working settings in case of FUBAR.

1. You will need to install either fglrx-ati or ati-drivers-fglrx through synaptic. As I don't have ATi I am not sure which is the correct name, check to see which shows up, if both do check versioning numbers and go with the higher version.

2. You will need to modify your xorg.conf file you posted earlier. The the [device] section you will need to chance the driver option to read fglrx instead of vesa

3. You need to add the resolution modes ABF posted above to the appropriate section of the xorg.conf(The bold parts of his post are what yours should look like)

4. Restart. You can actually do it without restarting, but this will be easiest for now. If it works, great. If not we can see why not, generally there will be some output from the command startx that can give us some help in determining exactly what went wrong and what we need to fix. Post this up along with your xorg.conf file in CODE blocks and we can move on from there.

Exactly what is happening now that is giving you so many problems?

Seablade

bmwrob · 03-17-2007, 06:45 PM

Hey seablade. Where to start . . .

I can download, but cannot install fglrx. Why? Beats the hell out of me!

Tried to install the ATI downloader because nothing else seemed to work. Again, it would download but would not install.

The keystrokes you mentioned yesterday still, with the exception of Alt F1, don't work. I think something useful may be on the screen when using this combination, but the screen is blurred badly by the colors and terrible text. Nothing is legible. Should post a screen shot, but at the moment, am on a different machine.

At one point I thought I was modifying xorg. Went to the Ubuntu forums and thought I was following instructions. But . . . apparently not only did I not modify xorg, I'm not really even sure what xorg is, it seems. Will have to do even more reading. So many unfamiliar terms and techniques - my brain is turning to mush - well, ok, it's becoming even mushier!

Nothing I've tried so far has brought as an option, resolutions any higher than 1600x1200. Something I've done, though, blew that particular option away. What's left is 600x400, or thereabouts.

Not sure what to try next and though I'm becoming very flustered, I'm too damn stubborn to try another distro until I get this one right. I may, however, simply toss the whole damn OS (with the stinkin' computer into which it's installed) RIGHT OUT THE DAMN WINDOW!!

Thanks for hanging in there with me.

abf · 03-17-2007, 07:33 PM

i'll try to walk you through step by step here...see if this gets you moving in the right direction.

NOTE: linux is case-sensitive. so if i type something in CAPS, it better be in CAPS

first get the latest drivers here: http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/l...ux-radeon.html (which i assume you already have)

next, crack open terminal and login as root

Code:

sudo su
password:

then run the installer (assume you d/led to desktop)

Code:

cd /home/yourusername/Desktop
sh ati-driver-installer-8.34.8-x86.x86_64.run

follow onscreen instructions. fair enough.

still in terminal: (ati config is a config tool that comes with the drivers, automatically edits and backs up your xorg.conf)

Code:

ati-config

reboot. hope you don't get the blue screen of death.

if stuff still looks bad... then you gotta get down and dirty.

first things first, make sure the module is properly loaded:

Code:

lsmod

this shows you all the loaded modules, look for fglrx, if its there, keep going.

then edit xorg.conf
[/code] gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf[/code]

and make it look like:

Code:

# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)

Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/X11/fonts/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
# path to defoma fonts
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "i2c"
Load "bitmap"
Load "ddc"
Load "dri"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
#Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "type1"
Load "vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbOptions" "lv3:ralt_switch"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "fglrx"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
HorizSync 28-51
VertRefresh 43-60
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Generic Video Card"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1600"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection

and like seablade said..if all else fails get elive... or pclinuxos2007 (which is what i am currently using)

abf · 03-17-2007, 07:58 PM

for the record, you dont need fglrx (and thus xgl) to run beryl on an ati machine. i've successfully gotten aiglx (through ati drivers) to run in pclinuxos and ubuntu....imo works better than xgl too.

Seablade · 03-17-2007, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmwrob

Hey seablade. Where to start . . .

I can download, but cannot install fglrx. Why? Beats the hell out of me!

Tried to install the ATI downloader because nothing else seemed to work. Again, it would download but would not install.

The keystrokes you mentioned yesterday still, with the exception of Alt F1, don't work. I think something useful may be on the screen when using this combination, but the screen is blurred badly by the colors and terrible text. Nothing is legible. Should post a screen shot, but at the moment, am on a different machine.

At one point I thought I was modifying xorg. Went to the Ubuntu forums and thought I was following instructions. But . . . apparently not only did I not modify xorg, I'm not really even sure what xorg is, it seems. Will have to do even more reading. So many unfamiliar terms and techniques - my brain is turning to mush - well, ok, it's becoming even mushier!

Nothing I've tried so far has brought as an option, resolutions any higher than 1600x1200. Something I've done, though, blew that particular option away. What's left is 600x400, or thereabouts.

Not sure what to try next and though I'm becoming very flustered, I'm too damn stubborn to try another distro until I get this one right. I may, however, simply toss the whole damn OS (with the stinkin' computer into which it's installed) RIGHT OUT THE DAMN WINDOW!!

Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Well ABF hit it right on the head with the first command he told you to use I think, it sounds suspiciously like you were doing those things as a regular user, which does not have the permissions to do them. the 'sudo su' command he told you to execute first will allow you to run all commands following on THAT PROMPT(Meaning if you open or use another prompt it will not be the same) as root.

The way you can tell you are root is that the prompt will end in a # instead of >

What concerns me though is your description of the console as being screwed up texts. What you are describing is the OPPOSITE of what I would expect from an incorrectly set up frame buffer, but I don't know where else to look on that right off hand.

But at any rate I can help tackle that one later, do you have a prompt when you switch to your F1 screen? If not hit escape and see if you do then? It will probably ask for your login first of course.

Try what ABF said and typed exactly, and see if that helps. Otherwise what I may do is see if we can set up a VNC or ssh session so I can guide you through it if yall don't get anywhere.

ABF(Or BT, BigE, etc) is SSH or VNC set up by default on ubuntu? If so you know what ports it uses by default in case we need to set up port fowarding on a firewall?

Seablade

abf · 03-18-2007, 09:42 AM

havent tried vnc in ubuntu so wouldn't know. the best i can tell you is that tightvnc works exceptionally well for me, i've gotten tightvnc working on pclinuxos--->pclinuxos as well as xp ---->pclos and pclos--->xp, hell, evne my axim x50 through vnc viewer can do pclos or xp.... so that works really well for me. so my recommendation would be go with tightvnc since its very easy to configure.

ChrisLilley · 03-20-2007, 12:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigtrouble77

I have a wacom tablet. It works, but it has issues with my laptop's wide screen. It's very frustrating to work with. I find that I have to constantly lift the pen so that it re-orientates itself.

Wacom now have widescreen (16:10) tablets. They look cool and are expensive ;-)

http://www.wacom-europe.com/int/prod...lang=en&pdx=35
http://creativebits.org/wacom_widescreen_tablet_review

bmwrob · 03-22-2007, 02:33 AM

Just in case anyone is still interested, I finally found instructions to install the damn ATI drivers here.

Finally, after a mere eight days (

) the resolution is correct.

Thanks to all.

ChrisLilley · 03-22-2007, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bmwrob

Just in case anyone is still interested, I finally found instructions to install the damn ATI drivers here.

Finally, after a mere eight days (

) the resolution is correct.

Thanks to all.

Have you added a link from the Ubuntu community documentation wiki to those instructions? To save anyone else the eight days pain ...

drlouis · 03-22-2007, 06:48 PM

how did I miss Rob using linux??

glad to hear you got it working... I shoulda checked here sooner (not that I could have helped given that ATI is the bane of my existence.)

03-16-2007, 05:25 PM	#18
BIGEE1212 Registered User Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 801 Credits: 2,370	Nah, you'd be surprised that Ubuntu actually is one of the slower distributions (average speed) compared to some others such as Vector or Gentoo. It probably "flies" for you becuase it is so fast compared to Windows. About Automatix, they have been having website problems for a few weeks. I was just on there yesterday and it was working, but it has been hit or miss. Make sure you get it installed properly before the site goes down. Once you have the program you can install all your apps (ATI driver, CD/DVD burning programs, media codecs, Azureus, Frostwire, google earth, and a bunch of other programs that you most users use). A really great place to learn where to install things manually (it has been said that automatix breaks your system, but i still use it) is www.ubuntuguide.org I would check it out, it will install pretty much anything you need. It also has a guide to install the ATI driver if you want to do that manually (which i suggest). I would install ATI driver manually, and use automatix for everything else. Good Luck __________________ Dell XPS M1730 Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz nVidia 8700 SLI Dell Mini 9 Intel Atom 1.6 GHz Ubuntu 8.10

03-17-2007, 06:33 AM	#20
Seablade Dont Ask Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Somewhere in the US Posts: 3,647 Credits: 52,629	Heh in your spare time grab a CD of ELive(Development Version) and burn it. If the live CD works(JUst pop it into your cd drive and reboot, it'll boot directly off thee CD) go ahead and install it in place of Ubuntu. It'll definitely move a bit faster, and has the option of setting up the proprietary drivers by default I believe. It is not so much a matter of being 'dumb' for linux. It is a matter of getting used to how Linux operates. Once you are used to that, trust me most things will be much easier. In the meantime, exactly what is happening that you are having problems with? Trust me when I say most of us can help you get it installed, but posting up with detailed information is always a must. To summarize the steps... 0. BACKUP your xorg.conf. Just make a copy of it you can restore to the original location to get back your original and somewhat working settings in case of FUBAR. 1. You will need to install either fglrx-ati or ati-drivers-fglrx through synaptic. As I don't have ATi I am not sure which is the correct name, check to see which shows up, if both do check versioning numbers and go with the higher version. 2. You will need to modify your xorg.conf file you posted earlier. The the [device] section you will need to chance the driver option to read fglrx instead of vesa 3. You need to add the resolution modes ABF posted above to the appropriate section of the xorg.conf(The bold parts of his post are what yours should look like) 4. Restart. You can actually do it without restarting, but this will be easiest for now. If it works, great. If not we can see why not, generally there will be some output from the command startx that can give us some help in determining exactly what went wrong and what we need to fix. Post this up along with your xorg.conf file in CODE blocks and we can move on from there. Exactly what is happening now that is giving you so many problems? Seablade Last edited by Seablade; 03-17-2007 at 06:36 AM.

03-17-2007, 07:58 PM	#23
abf 2 1337 4 \|_\| Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 8,264 Credits: 2,262	for the record, you dont need fglrx (and thus xgl) to run beryl on an ati machine. i've successfully gotten aiglx (through ati drivers) to run in pclinuxos and ubuntu....imo works better than xgl too. __________________

03-18-2007, 09:42 AM	#25
abf 2 1337 4 \|_\| Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 8,264 Credits: 2,262	havent tried vnc in ubuntu so wouldn't know. the best i can tell you is that tightvnc works exceptionally well for me, i've gotten tightvnc working on pclinuxos--->pclinuxos as well as xp ---->pclos and pclos--->xp, hell, evne my axim x50 through vnc viewer can do pclos or xp.... so that works really well for me. so my recommendation would be go with tightvnc since its very easy to configure. __________________

03-22-2007, 06:48 PM	#29
drlouis he who must not be named Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 26,065 Credits: 10,202	how did I miss Rob using linux?? glad to hear you got it working... I shoulda checked here sooner (not that I could have helped given that ATI is the bane of my existence.) __________________

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03-16-2007, 09:22 PM	#19
bmwrob Registered User Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 8,265 Credits: 3,306	I've been trying to get Automatix to work since the earlier post where it was first suggested to me - I'll keep trying. And I've tried several times to install the ATI drivers manually, but it seems that I'm just to dumb to get it right. LOL I've never had so much trouble doing something which I'd have thought would be easy. Guess I need to do some more reading. Except for everything I've tried relating to the resolution, the OS seems to be working well. I don't think I've damaged anything yet.

03-17-2007, 06:45 PM	#21
bmwrob Registered User Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 8,265 Credits: 3,306	Hey seablade. Where to start . . . I can download, but cannot install fglrx. Why? Beats the hell out of me! Tried to install the ATI downloader because nothing else seemed to work. Again, it would download but would not install. The keystrokes you mentioned yesterday still, with the exception of Alt F1, don't work. I think something useful may be on the screen when using this combination, but the screen is blurred badly by the colors and terrible text. Nothing is legible. Should post a screen shot, but at the moment, am on a different machine. At one point I thought I was modifying xorg. Went to the Ubuntu forums and thought I was following instructions. But . . . apparently not only did I not modify xorg, I'm not really even sure what xorg is, it seems. Will have to do even more reading. So many unfamiliar terms and techniques - my brain is turning to mush - well, ok, it's becoming even mushier! Nothing I've tried so far has brought as an option, resolutions any higher than 1600x1200. Something I've done, though, blew that particular option away. What's left is 600x400, or thereabouts. Not sure what to try next and though I'm becoming very flustered, I'm too damn stubborn to try another distro until I get this one right. I may, however, simply toss the whole damn OS (with the stinkin' computer into which it's installed) RIGHT OUT THE DAMN WINDOW!! Thanks for hanging in there with me.

03-22-2007, 02:33 AM	#27
bmwrob Registered User Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 8,265 Credits: 3,306	Just in case anyone is still interested, I finally found instructions to install the damn ATI drivers here. Finally, after a mere eight days ( ) the resolution is correct. Thanks to all.

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