X reverts to EGA
 

It got your attention didn't it? :-)

I've got a Toshiba p25-ish laptop with the 17" widescreen and other nifty things. After fighting with xorg.conf for a while, I finally got it to use the correct resolution. I'm lovin' it. The bad news is that it keeps reverting to 16-*bit* color... Sorry, I didn't really mean *16 colors* as in the topic.

The only section I've got in xorg.conf is referring to DefaultDepth 24 and Depth 24. For some reason, I'm not getting a "true color" setting even though xorg.conf is setup that way.

This laptop has a nVidia go5200 in it. I'm pretty sure that any similar 17" laptop out there with a GeForce chipset will be equivalent since I believe there are only 2 screen manufacturers for this model screen (for the PowerBook 17, some Toshiba, some whatever, blah blah blah).

Anyone know what could be going on here?


# XFree86 4 configuration created by pyxf86config

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Synaptics" "AlwaysCore"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# RgbPath is the location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally
# no need to change the default.
# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath "unix/:7100"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "synaptics"
Load "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))
# Option "Xleds" "1 2 3"
# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
# Option "XkbDisable"
# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the
# lines below (which are the defaults). For example, for a non-U.S.
# keyboard, you will probably want to use:
# Option "XkbModel" "pc102"
# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:
# Option "XkbModel" "microsoft"
#
# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.
# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# or:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
#
# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and
# control keys, use:
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps"
# Or if you just want both to be control, use:
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"
#
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
Option "LeftEdge" "120"
Option "RightEdge" "830"
Option "TopEdge" "120"
Option "BottomEdge" "650"
Option "FingerLow" "14"
Option "FingerHigh" "15"
Option "MaxTapMove" "110"
Option "VertScrollDelta" "20"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "20"
Option "MinSpeed" "0.3"
Option "MaxSpeed" "0.75"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "LCD Panel 1440x900"
HorizSync 31.5 - 100
VertRefresh 59 - 75
ModeLine "1440x900" 106.47 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 901 904 932 -hsync +vsync
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nv"
VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce FX (generic)"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1440x900" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSection

A few questions:

1. How do you know you're not getting a 24 bit display?

2. What desktop environments have you tried? KDE? GNOME?

3. What linux distribution are you using?

I know that GNOME can have display settings which override the defaults in your xorg.conf. I'm not sure, but I think KDE can have settings which override the defaults also. In either case, by never messing with the display settings in either GNOME's configuration or KDE's control center, both will simply accept the defaults.

One thing that I notice is that your "xorg.conf" seems to describe itself as "XFree86 4" configuration. I don't know if that means anything at all.

*SOLVED*
 

I figured out what the issue was. BTW, I could tell I was 16 bit because of gradients in images. I needed to install the latest NVIDIA drivers, but not only that, I had to have a slightly different setup to coax it into 1440x900 with 24 bit color.

Even after the installation of the drivers I had to tweak a few things to FORCE it into 1440x900. The following config *should* work for anyone with a 17" widescreen laptop running 1440x900 resolution with a GeForce chipset.

Here is the xorg.conf file...

# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Synaptics" "AlwaysCore"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# RgbPath is the location of the RGB database. Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db"). There is normally
# no need to change the default.
# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.
RgbPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
FontPath "unix/:7100"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "glx"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "synaptics"
Load "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))
# Option "Xleds" "1 2 3"
# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
# Option "XkbDisable"
# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the
# lines below (which are the defaults). For example, for a non-U.S.
# keyboard, you will probably want to use:
# Option "XkbModel" "pc102"
# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:
# Option "XkbModel" "microsoft"
#
# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.
# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# or:
# Option "XkbLayout" "de"
# Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
#
# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and
# control keys, use:
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:swapcaps"
# Or if you just want both to be control, use:
# Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"
#
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
Option "LeftEdge" "120"
Option "RightEdge" "830"
Option "TopEdge" "120"
Option "BottomEdge" "650"
Option "FingerLow" "14"
Option "FingerHigh" "15"
Option "MaxTapMove" "110"
Option "VertScrollDelta" "20"
Option "HorizScrollDelta" "20"
Option "MinSpeed" "0.3"
Option "MaxSpeed" "0.75"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "LCD Panel 1440x900"
#HorizSync 31.5 - 100.0
HorizSync 28 - 72
#VertRefresh 59.0 - 75.0
VertRefresh 43 - 60
ModeLine "1440x900" 106.47 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 901 904 932 -hsync +vsync
#ModeLine "1440x900@60" 60 1440 1504 1536 1760 900 903 906 912 -HSync +VSync
Option "dpms"
Option "IgnoreEDID" "1"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "nVidia Corporation"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce FX (generic)"
Option "NoLogo" "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1440x900" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
Group 0
Mode 0666
EndSection