Good Display Resolution with ChaletOS on live disk, but poor when installed on HD

Nicola003 · 03-16-2018, 06:10 PM

I have an old laptop, ACER ASPIRE 3002LCI. When the ChaletOS 32 bit disk is live, the display resolution is great (1024x768) and I can see the windows completely. But when I install ChaletOS on the Hard drive, the display goes to 640x480 and I cannot change it, and the windows are too big to fit on the screen and they will not resize. The VGA card is a Silion Integrated System 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter.

I do not know how to find or install the correct driver. I have used the Software Updater and looked for additional drivers, but found none.

Apparently, when run from the live disk, the correct driver is present, but when installed on the hard drive, linux does not install the correct driver.

Your help is greatly appreciated. Keep in mind in am a very new Linux user, so the simplier the better.

Many thanks....N

fatmac · 03-18-2018, 07:59 AM

Copy all the drivers off the live, to a pendrive, then copy them into your installed system, reboot, & hopefully you will have the correct driver used.

AwesomeMachine · 03-18-2018, 12:48 PM

OK, how are you trying to set the resolution? What program are you using?

ondoho · 03-19-2018, 02:56 AM

^ yes, answer that first.

but this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicola003

The VGA card is a Silion Integrated System 661/741/760 PCI/AGP or 662/761Gx PCIE VGA Display Adapter.

is bad news.

btw, this laptop is almost 15y old?

anyhow, SiS graphics.
you have to understand that distro installers can fail with very old hardware.
do you have xf86-video-sis (maybe not the exact package name) installed?

please post /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

Nicola003 · 03-19-2018, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fatmac

Copy all the drivers off the live, to a pendrive, then copy them into your installed system, reboot, & hopefully you will have the correct driver used.

Since I am a beginner, could you please tell me:
1. The drivers you want me to copy from the Chalet02 live DVD, which folder are they in and what do they look like?
2. Regarding copying the drivers to the CHALETOS installed on the HD, which folder do I copy them to?

Your help is much appreciated.

Nicola003 · 03-19-2018, 07:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AwesomeMachine

OK, how are you trying to set the resolution? What program are you using?

I am using the DISPLAY app built into CHALET. Keep in mind i am a beginner, so any detailed help you can give is appreciated.

N

Nicola003 · 03-19-2018, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ondoho

^ yes, answer that first.

but this:

is bad news.

btw, this laptop is almost 15y old?

anyhow, SiS graphics.
you have to understand that distro installers can fail with very old hardware.
do you have xf86-video-sis (maybe not the exact package name) installed?

please post /var/log/Xorg.0.log.

I do not know what /var/log/Xorg.0.log is? I am a beginner. Any detailed help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
N

ondoho · 03-20-2018, 01:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicola003

I am a beginner.

your machine is too old to run something like chalet os.
you need a distro designed for very old computers.
have a look here.

AwesomeMachine · 03-20-2018, 10:42 AM

No, chalet os is a lightweight, beginner distro. I think it's Debian based, with XFCE DE. Nicola003 It sounds like you're really a beginner. That's OK. It's difficult to do anything until you get the screen resolution corrected.

So, here's how: You have to open a terminal emulator, You'll just have to poke around in the menu until you find something called terminal, or something similar. You'll need to either use sudo or change to the super user with su. First type

Code:

xrandr

Look for the line with the '*'. That's what the display is currently using. Look at the name os the display, LVDS perhaps. You'll need that after this next step.

Code:

$ cvt 1160 1600

That will return something like this:

Code:

# 1160x1600 59.99 Hz (CVT) hsync: 99.46 kHz; pclk: 156.75 MHz
Modeline "1160x1600_60.00"  156.75  1160 1248 1368 1576  1600 1603 1613 1658 -hsync +vsync

Copy and paste the modeline into the command below. Use the display name you got from the first command in place of virtual1. Type one line at a time and hit enter after each one:

Code:

$ xrandr --newmode "1160x1600_60.00"  156.75  1160 1248 1368 1576  1600 1603 1613 1658 -hsync +vsync
$ xrandr --addmode Virtual1 1160x1600_60.00
$ xrandr --output  Virtual1 --mode 1160x1600_60.00

You'll need to change those command parameters to suit your own situation, i.e. the actual resolution you want. You'll need to insert those last three lines into /home/your_user_name/.bashrc, to make the change persist through reboots. But before you do all that, see if you can find in the menu, 'display'. That's xcfe-display-settings. You can check if the resolution you want is available. It might not be, because the world isn't perfect.

Good luck and God's speed.

ondoho · 03-20-2018, 12:28 PM

^ good advice for sure.
but i did research a little before i posted.
this machine is from 2005 (and was a budget laptop then), so ubuntu-based doesn't cut it!!!
ubuntu is known for not caring about compatibility with VERY old devices.

additionally, i daresay that "lightweight" doesn't cut it either.
featherweight.

i think antiX would be a better fit here; unless someone is willing to walk op through the process of getting xorg to work with this SiS adapter.

AwesomeMachine · 03-20-2018, 03:52 PM

I recently loaded Debian Xfce on a 2002 lappy and it worked fine. But that was a top-end 2002 lappy. Yet, it only has 2GB of ram and a core 2 duo cpu. I'm sure the OP would be better off with Antix. I just hope he doesn't decide to quit altogether.

Nicola003 · 03-24-2018, 08:54 AM

to AWSOMEMACHINE or others:

I tried your suggestions with the following results. still the display is not resolved. Still need some basic instructions on how to change to 1024x768 display resolution (it comes up with this resolution with running CHALET on live disc, but then reverts to 640x480 when installed in HD.)

Results: Any suggestions? Remember I am beginner, so please be very detailed. Thanks much, Nicola

Output from inputting the above:
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 768
default connected 1024x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
1024x768 61.00*
800x600 61.00

640x480 60.00

home@home-laptop:~$ cvt 1024 768
# 1024x768 59.92 Hz (CVT 0.79M3) hsync: 47.82 kHz; pclk: 63.50 MHz
Modeline "1024x768_60.00" 63.50 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 798 -hsync +vsync

home@home-laptop:~$ xrandr
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 640 x 480, maximum 640 x 480
default connected 640x480+0+0 0mm x 0mm
640x480 73.00*
home@home-laptop:~$ cvt 1024 768
# 1024x768 59.92 Hz (CVT 0.79M3) hsync: 47.82 kHz; pclk: 63.50 MHz
Modeline "1024x768_60.00" 63.50 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 798 -hsync +vsync
home@home-laptop:~$ xrandr newmode
xrandr: unrecognized option 'newmode'
Try 'xrandr --help' for more information.
home@home-laptop:~$ xrandr newmode "1024x768_60.00" 63.50 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 798 -hsync +vsync
xrandr: unrecognized option 'newmode'
Try 'xrandr --help' for more information.
home@home-laptop:~$ xrandr --newmode "1024x768_60.00" 63.50 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 798 -hsync +vsync
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
home@home-laptop:~$ xrandr --addmode Screen 0 1024x768_60.00
xrandr: unrecognized option '1024x768_60.00'
Try 'xrandr --help' for more information.
home@home-laptop:~$ xrandr --output Screen 0 --mode 1024x768_60.00
xrandr: unrecognized option '0'
Try 'xrandr --help' for more information.
home@home-laptop:~$ xrandr --output --mode 1024x768_60.00
xrandr: unrecognized option '1024x768_60.00'
Try 'xrandr --help' for more information.
home@home-laptop:~$

beachboy2 · 03-24-2018, 11:20 AM

Nicila003,

I appreciate that you wish to use ChaletOS.

However, if you are unable to solve the screen resolution problem, I would second what others have recommended and use antiX which is Debian based.

antiX is a lightweight Linux distribution specially designed for older, low-powered hardware such as this and will usually allow the automatic enabling of Broadcom wifi drivers.
256MB RAM is the minimum recommended memory for antiX.

https://antixlinux.com/

antiX Forum:
https://www.antixforum.com/

Download the 32 bit antiX-16.1_386-full.iso:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ant...inal/antiX-17/

antiX-17 FAQs:
http://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/....html#_antix17

To enable wifi in antiX 17.1 after installation:

Menu > Control Centre > Network > Network Interfaces (ceni) > wlan0 > follow wizard and give SSID/network name and wifi password.

mrmazda · 03-25-2018, 04:15 AM

We can probably find out why the difference between live and installed if you can provide Xorg.0.log from both a live boot and an installed boot. First look for the log in /var/log. If you don't find it there, look in /home/<loginname>/.local/share/xorg.

Without seeing the logs first, we can speculate that the needed driver is included on the live media but not available once installed. The name of the driver for your video device is xserver-xorg-video-sis. We can see on http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool...org-video-sis/ that this driver exists, but that it is quite old, which means it might not be compatible with the xorg server version installed.

Code:

dpkg -l | grep xserver-xorg-video-sis

will report whether it has already been installed.

Code:

apt-get search xserver-xorg-video-sis

will report whether the driver is available to install in your ChaletOS. Or, simply try to install it instead of trying to search for it:

Code:

apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-sis

You might need to preface each of the above commands with "sudo ". Please be sure to wrap code tags around the logs and the command outputs in your reply.

Also check if the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf exists on both live and as installed. If either exists, include here too.