xfree86 settings for the compaq lte 5xxx
 

Hi,
I recently installed slackware on an old compaq lte 5250 (120MHz, 32mb RAM, 2.1Gb HDD) and have got most things running OK (slow, but stable), however, I am having problems with the display settings.

I have looked elsewhere, but can't find the info I need to set up xf86config properly. I have tried several settings, but with no luck. It did work when I set it up by default, but it was only displaying 640x480, and so most of the screen wasn't filled. since I changed it, I havn't been able to get the settings back again (forgot to make a note of them, doh!). If any one has had sucess in setting this up, I would be very grateful if you could give me the settings I need, as I don't want to have to go though every single setting on the config!

The monitor is of the CTFT 10.4" variety (so default for this model), It is supposed to be able to do 800x600, in 16bit, and apparently people have been able to acchieve this in Linux, but I havn't found any proper info as yet.

Thanks in advance, as an aside, if anyone could point me at a sight showing me how to optimise gnome for this laptop, or point me in the direction of a similar, but faster, GUI, It'd be much appreciated! :)

cheers,
Theylan

Well, further to this post I continued to fiddle, and in order to set up the screen as desired you have to ignore the drivers for the graphics card in xf86config. [note in the following the brackets represent the number for choosing from the menu of xf86config)

Instead choose the generic vesa driver (0), with a monitor horizontal sync of extended svga 800x600 52Hz, 640x480 72Hz (5) and the vertical sync of 50-90 Hz. Choose default of 16bit, and change the graphics setup to NO 24bit colour, 800x600, 640x480 16bit (32), and 800x600, 640x480 8bit (32). The memory is 1024kb (3).

Hope this helps someone else! I know that it will save you a lot of time and fiddling (and don't I know it! :) )

you may find these links useful:

http://t2100cdt.kippona.net/linux/lte5200/

http://www.schou.dk/linux/compaq5100.html

http://www.biwa.ne.jp/~shamada/linux...000_linux.html

the third one is in a foreign language, but don't be put off - the config files are in english!

Hope this helps, (it took surprisingly little googling in fact),

reetep.

Thank you very much, but prior to my first post, I had already googled, and indeed found the first two of your links. Unfortunately, although their configs work, with the latest version of XF86 they result in the 640x480 resolution, with the inch band around the edges as noted in the first post, the only driver that seems to give the 800x600 in the latest version is the generic vesa driver, as noted in my second post, and not the VGA of SVGA drivers shown in the configs of your links. I DO google before posting, as I know how annoying people who post without looking elsewhere can be (though I'm sure we have all done it at least once when we were just starting), but I thank you for your effort.

Everything else is going well with the setup, though if anyone else is doing up an old LTE 5000 series, may I suggest fvwm (www.fvwm.org ) rather than Gnome or KDE - even if you have upgraded as much as you can it still runs like a pig, any thoughts that it doesn't matter how slowly it runs, as long as it does, are misplaced! :) fvwm runs many, many times faster - and there is such scope for customisation it's unbelievable!

Cheers again!