How to switch laptop display to native resolution?

redss · 12-10-2012, 12:14 PM

I have Ubuntu 10.04 loaded onto my older laptop HP Compaq nx6125 which has a native resolution of 1400x1050, but my monitor control panel doesnt let me switch to a resolution higher than 1024x768.

My laptop spec sheet says the graphics processor is ATI Mobility Radeon X300 and lspci says:
VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE)

I've tried manually adding the higher resolution using xrandr but switching to it locks up the computer. So I apparently need to seek an alternative video driver.

I have read that my graphics driver choices are the generic VESA driver, open source Radeon driver, Catalyst bbinary driver, or proprietary fglrx driver from AMD/ATI. I've been unable to locate the proprietary driver which seems to be the ideal option, and I dont know which of the other drivers is in use.

How do I tell which video driver is in use, and any tips on how to get working in that native resolution or find a graphics driver that will work in ubuntu 10.04?

adamk75 · 12-10-2012, 12:28 PM

While 10.04 is technically supported on the desktop for another 5 months, bear in mind that it is well over two years old by now, and the open source driver stack used for your video card is also going to be over two years old. You should seriously consider upgrading, IMO, or at least testing a livecd of a newer version.

Adam

EDDY1 · 12-10-2012, 12:37 PM

Support for x300 is discontinued but you can try legacy drivers.
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownloa...2&lang=English

adamk75 · 12-10-2012, 12:42 PM

Those legacy drivers will not work in 10.04. The last Ubuntu release that supported the proprietary driver for the x300 was 9.04 (or maybe even 8.10)...

redss · 12-10-2012, 01:35 PM

Right, I tried and indeed that legacy driver isn't compatible with 10.04. I have reasons to stay with 10.04 for now. Any hope of getting the laptop working in native resolution under 10.04?

adamk75 · 12-10-2012, 06:09 PM

You can check the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file to see if Xorg is really using the radeon driver. If it is, perhaps there is some error related to the native resolution.

If it is using the radeon driver, and this really is just a bug in the driver, there's not much you can do short of manually updating the driver from source.

Adam

redss · 12-10-2012, 07:39 PM

Thanks for your help. It's hard to me to tell exactly which driver is loaded by inspecting Xorg.0.log, because the last ~50 lines start with RADEON(0). Here is the last line of the file:

Code:

(II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1024x768"x0.0   65.00  1024 1048 1184 1344  768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync (48.4 kHz)

However, what confuses me is earlier in the file it looks like several other modules including vesa are loaded:

Code:

(II) LoadModule: "ati"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/ati_drv.so
(II) Module ati: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
  compiled for 1.7.6, module version = 6.13.0
  Module class: X.Org Video Driver
  ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 6.0
(II) LoadModule: "radeon"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so
(II) Module radeon: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
  compiled for 1.7.6, module version = 6.13.0
  Module class: X.Org Video Driver
  ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 6.0
(II) LoadModule: "vesa"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so
(II) Module vesa: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
  compiled for 1.7.6, module version = 2.3.0
  Module class: X.Org Video Driver
  ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 6.0
(II) LoadModule: "fbdev"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so
(II) Module fbdev: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
  compiled for 1.7.6, module version = 0.4.1
  ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 6.0
(II) RADEON: Driver for ATI Radeon chipsets:
  ATI Radeon Mobility X600 (M24) 3150 (PCIE), ATI FireMV 2400 (PCI),
  ATI Radeon Mobility X300 (M24) 3152 (PCIE),

At any rate, I wouldn't know where to find updated source for my configuration, so I guess if that's the only solution I'm out of luck?

adamk75 · 12-11-2012, 07:55 AM

It's definitely using the radeon driver. If your computer is locking up when you use xrandr to change to the native resolution, then you are definitely encountering some bug. You could try opening up a bug report, but that will most likely get ignored since you are using such an old version of Xorg.

Adam

redss · 12-11-2012, 08:02 AM

Drat. Is there any hope of getting a higher resolution with one of the other driver options? (assuming I could find a different driver that works under 10.04)

adamk75 · 12-11-2012, 08:16 AM

The only other driver that would work is the vesa driver, and that will not give you 1400x1050.

Adam

redss · 12-11-2012, 08:24 AM

Would the vesa driver give me higher than the 1024x768 I have now? Like maybe 1280x1024? How can I switch to the vesa driver to try it out?

Thanks again for all your help.