XUbuntu on T23: problems with GPU (SuperSavage)
 

Hello @all,

here is my situation: I have an old Thinkpad T23 with broken internal display (which originally had an SXGA+ resolution, 1400x1050). In order to see anything, I connected external monitor - "Fujitsu Siemens Scaleoview L19W-2" with maximal resolution of 1440x900. GPU is a "S3 SuperSavage" with 16 MB of video-RAM.

I installed XUbuntu 13.10 (with "nomodeset" and "xforcevesa" parameters) and noticed the following: my external (and the only usable) display is set to the maximal resolution of the internal one (1400 x 1050), and I cannot change it to any other value. The native of the external display is not available in the list.

I searched a bit on the web and found out, that the GPU of my laptop - "S3 SuperSavage" - is not supported anymore by Linux. On the other hand, some people reported about successfull use of the "savage" driver after finetuning the Xorg.conf. Can anyone here give me a hint, how I can make my T23 use the proper resolution of the external monitor? I would appreciate any hint.

Regards from Hamburg,
Andrey

To generate a xorg.conf, logout, go to the tty console with ctrl+alt+(F1-F6), then as root terminate the X server and login manager processes. Note the X server and login manager must be down to be able to generate the file.
With that done now you are able to generate the file with the command:
It will place a file named xorg.conf.new in the /root directory, then copy it as xorg.conf to /etc/X11.

Now you are able to fiddle with it and get the correct resolution for your display.
To get the mod setting use the commands cvt or gtf:
Then edit the sections "Monitor" and "Screen" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Your file may be a little different but will be easy to figure out.

Regards

reconfiguration of Xorg.conf failed
 

Hello ukiuki,

thanks for the hint. I tried it already, but I get an error message: when I execute "sudo X -configure", it fails with a message "Number of detected screens doesnt match number of detected devices". Here is my cuurent xorg.conf:

And here is a new Xorg.conf, created today (after I started sudo X -configure):
Would appreciate any hint.

Thanks in advance,
Andrey

It did give you a warning and not really an error which wouldn't actually happen to generate the file.
Weird, how many video devices and screens that computer really have? It is saying 4, about your display is it just the lcd that is broke or something else?

Now all you have to do is to set the modeline in the proper sections.
One more hint not sure if you will be able to use Depth 24 so it is wise to set the modeline to 16,
if you you are not going to use anything smaller than 16 you can just comment all the other lines, same for the extra devices and screen, just find out which ones is the real one, for that just type xrandr in the terminal.

Regards

Hello ukiuki,

the GPU itsels has 3 outs: LCD/built-in display (which is physically broken und useless), VGA-port (where external monitor is connected) and S-Video-/TV-out (where nothing is connected). Should I delete one or two devices from the new file? Should I change something else (except for the colour's depth) in the new file? What about driver? ThinkWiki says, the "S3 SuperSavage" works with "savage" driver. Should I use it?

Regards,
Andrey.

About the driver yes, the "savage" driver is the correct one.
Just comment the lines not in use with an # in the begin of it if you are sure that you are not going to use any of those, make sure which section in the file is for VGA, only add modeline to that particular related sections and for 16 and 24 depth only, the other depth subsections can be safely removed.

So here what the section screen should look like:
And what the section monitor should look like:
The lines in grey may be necesary if even with the modeline your monitor still not generating the correct resolution but you'll have to find out the correct values for your particular monitor.

Regards

Hello ukiuki,

sorry for being silent for such a long time - I was quite busy the whole month, had no time for my "T23"-toy. :-)

So, just now I did eveything you described earlier. I changed xorg.conf.new, renamed it to xorg.conf and tried to restart X server. It didn't work. Or, better to say, it worked (X server seems to be running), but I cannot use the laptop anymore, because the X server shows my just some coloured stripes on the screen, and I even cannot change to console sessions (CTRL-F1 to CTRL-F6). At the present I try to start laptop from "Ubuntu"-live-CD to revert back to the previous configuration.

There are some things I noticed while changing the xorg:
1) xrandr returned me just one screen - actually, for me it means that Linux just clones my broken LCD display to the external monitor (and doesn't activate real VGA output. This also explains, why I have 1400x1050 as max. resolution - this is the resolution of the LCD)
2) file "xorg.conf.new" detected 4(!) cards (don't ask me why), but Card0 had "savage" as a driver.

Are these facts somehow usefull?

I have an idea: should I try to use the "xorg.conf.new" without any changes, just as it was generated? Will it give anything?

And, of course, I would appreciate any hint about recovering my old graphical setting without reinstalling Linux from the very beginning.

Regards from Hamburg,
Andrey

Update: I booted with Ubuntu-LiveCD and could replace the new/worng config-file with the old/working one. So, now I'm in the original state.