Video problem with Sony Vaio PCG-FX310
 

Hi.

I'd like to put some version of Linux on my older laptop. I've tried various distro's and they all have the same video problem.

In my introduction post I alluded that it's an Xorg problem, but that may not actually be the case. It may be a more general video problem that I don't know enough about to diagnose.



attached to this post there's a picture of what the Debian GNU\Linux installer looks like on the laptop. See how the video doesn't take up all of the screen?

That's how the video stays, even after installing xorg etc.

I've attempted playing with the vsync and hsync(?) settings according to instructions I've found on several sites the internet probably about a year ago with no avail. Every 6 months or so I'll test some updated distro, but it's always the same.

Now, (this may be important in putting the clues together) I recall that for Ubuntu 7.10 the video actually *did* work. But Ubuntu seemed way too heavy on the meager resources and the laptop was fairly unresponsive. Ubuntu releases since then don't work.

What I need is a slim fluxbox system in which I can run vim, ssh, rsync, compilers, etc. Or even just an X screen to run a few terms. It's just I need a whole screen! :-)

Any help would be massively appreciated.

billywayne

That's very odd. Have you tried slackware ?

No. I haven't tried Slackware. It must be the only distro I haven't tried, for some reason. I'll give it a spin.

Not that I know too much about the problem as I cannot view the attachment for some reason.
Just one very general remark. On older computers an older version of Linux might be more suitable as they don't take up too much of the resources. How old is the computer? Have you tried modprobe?
Are you sure the hardware is ok?
Monika