Hi all! I am new to Linux and am having a problem with the Xserver. I have the following setup:

Gateway 2000 PC (g6- 300)
Intel Pentium II 300
RedHat Linux 7.2

OK the problem i am having is with setting the resolution within the Xserver. My Video card was not listed so i selected Generic SVGA during setup but when running startx i kept getting a server crash error. I altered XF86Config both with vi and Xconfigurator and managed to get the Xserver to start but the resolution was way too low and the windows went off the screen.

Doing a search on several forums this seems to be a common problem. Using Xconfigurator, when i change the resolution to 16bit or 24 bit Xwindows either stops working or does not change the resolution at all.

When i do get a setting to work i get a screen that says "Testing graphic Mode 320 x 204 x 256" and asks whether you can read the message "Y" or "N". This page times out after 10 seconds or so.

When i do a SuperProbe i get the following responce:
First Video: Super-VGA
ChipSet: yamaha 6388 VPDC
RAMDAC: Generic 8-Bit pseudo-color DAC (with 6-bit wide lookup tables (or in 6-bit mode))

The video card i have is Onboard and is a Chromatics Research MPACT2. There is very limited info around on this video card as far as i can see. When running this PC on windows, i can get 1280x1024 res with no problems but cannot seem to get anything like this under Linux/XFree86.

I have tried Ctrl, Alt + - which does not work, tried editing the XF86Config files etc but to no avail so far.

Any advise much appreciated.

If you have an agp port I would either purchase a new nvideo card or buy one from ebay for around $12.00 a working pull. It will save you a lot of problems. You have to disable the on board video in the bios. You can check the board manufacturers web site for a linux driver.
Richard

Hi rhandwor and thanks for the reply. Yes that may be a good idea as i cannot get it to work properly. I have the drivers for this card, and am wondering if there is a way of installing them. I know it seems like a lot of work for nothing as there is an easy solution but i am learning alot about linux from as a result of this problem. The motherboard does not have an agp slot, it's an old pc that i am learning linux on, nothing more.

Is your drivers in rpm form or a tar ball? It makes a big difference on the installation. You can use yum to install a rpm file. Or you could use file roller for a tar file.
gzip -d package.tar.gz
tar -xvf package.tar.
rpm -U package
./package
These commands should enable you to get axcess to the file.
If you don't have a agp slot you can use a pci video card.

I have the original cd that contains all the drivers for this pc, not sure what format they are in.

If you have one cd that came with the computer it more than likely has windows drivers which won't work with linux. You can go to the motherboard Mfg. and see if they have linux drivers. Or do a web search for linux drivers. If you installed your linux cd-roms when you loaded linux it searches your hardware and loads the closest drivers available on the cd-rom. If you have wine installed you could try to load the drivers on the cd-rom. Warning this could cause a bigger problem.
I have fedora core five and the onboard video wasn't supported. I decided to purchase a working pull pci card as I don't have a agp slot on my motherboard. Fedora supports Nvideo cards according to a reply I got.