Suse 11.1 Display resolution problem

Turgidson · 02-12-2009, 11:29 AM

We have a new installation of 11.1 on an older mainboard with the NVidia nForce 430 video on-board. It recognizes my widescreen viewsonic monitor with the correct aspect ratio (16:10), but the screen resolutions available all indicate 4:3. All the people on the screen look really wide and fat. Can anyone help me return those people to their normal thin selves?

I've been puzzling over how to load alternate drivers. I have no idea whether this is the monitor or video "card". I don't want to go out and get a new monitor for this, but if a different video card would help... Is the new generation of ATI cards any better at this? I hear that ATI has decided to become Linux friendly.

Thanks

Paul

athor · 02-12-2009, 03:45 PM

I don't think it either the driver or the card. I think it's just because SuSE likes wide people

So to solve this I would definately try using a modeline. It's a bit tweaking and you will need your manual, or google, to find out some values like horizontal sync rate, but in the end, a modeline can make miracles.
So take a look at http://xtiming.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/xtiming.pl

If you're lazy and have some luck, it can be enough to just add the right wide-screen resolution in /etc/X11/xorg.conf under the screen selection. Just put it beside all the others.

Actually I don't know how familiar you are with xorg.conf, so I'm afraid I can't help so much more right know. If you still can't fix it, reply here again.

Turgidson · 02-13-2009, 06:48 AM

Tried your website. It automatically generated the modeline entry for me. I like benevolent people with time on their hands.

Of course, when I finally got into the xorg.conf file, and took a look at the monitor specs in the file, it already knew what the monitor was, and had widescreen resolution listed there (1440 x 900). Somehow, this information is not translating down to the YAST tool that lets me configure the monitor.

Perhaps I need to ask a more basic question. This information about what monitor resolutions are available... is it coming from software tied to Linux, or is it coming from the graphics card's own bios? Would adding a more modern graphics card change the behavior, or would it still be dealing with some list that Linux generated?

I guess the other question is whether this is a KDE problem? This is SuSE's KDE interface, probably a new version, that is generating the graphic screen. Could this be solved by simply switching to gnome?

Thanks

P

jschiwal · 02-13-2009, 06:59 AM

Are you running the nvidia driver? Try one of these solutions.

A) Try the nvidia-settings program. Does the correct resolution show up there?
B) Run sax2. To the right of the Monitor line at the top, click the Change button. Select your monitor. If it is an LCD monitor, select -->LCD on the left pane and 1440x900 on the right.

C) Run the gtf program and create a custom modeline.

I have a 1440x900 monitor on my laptop. Here is my monitor entry:

Code:

Section "Monitor"

  # created by KGamma
  # created by KGamma
    Identifier     "Monitor[1]"
    VendorName     "--> LCD"
    ModelName      "1280X1024@60HZ"
    UseModes       "Modes[0]"
    DisplaySize     365    408
    HorizSync       30.0 - 38.0
    VertRefresh     30.0 - 61.0
    Gamma           1.05
    Option         "CalcAlgorithm" "XServerPool"
    Option         "DPMS"
    Option         "PreferredMode" "1280x1024"
EndSection

Turgidson · 02-13-2009, 09:02 AM

Thanks. I'm not sure about what driver I am running. Most of my experience is with Windows, and I am still mystified about how Linux installs software, drivers, etc. I assume it is running the nVidia driver, and that when I go to change my monitor characteristics through YAST, that it is interacting with the nVidia settings program.

Is there something else I need to install for nVidia? If I were looking at Windows, I would be painfully aware that an installer program was running, and I would know how to determine whether the software had actually installed. That is not the case here. I've tried installing some things under SuSE, with 60% success, and I did not realize until much later that something had not installed.

P

jschiwal · 02-13-2009, 10:34 AM

There are three nvidia drivers. The nv driver. This driver doesn't have 3d support. The propriety driver "nvidia" from nvidia. There is an project to write an opensource driver "Nouveau", but it's not supplied for SuSE 11.1.

Look at the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. In the "Device" section, for the Driver line it will say either "nv" or "nvidia".

If you are using "nv", you can install the nvidia driver one of two ways.

1) Add the nvidia repository 2) Download and run the nvidia installer from their web site.

To add the repository, run the "Installation Sources" module in YaST2. If the nvidia repo isn't listed, click on the "Add" button.
Select "Community Repositories" and click "Next". A list of available repositories will be downloaded. Select the nvidia repo.

(While you are at it, add the Packman and VLC repositories as well. You will need them to install program versions to play proprietary media types, such as MP3s.)

Now you can install the nvidia driver using the package manager or using the zypper command.

2) Go to the nvidia web site. Download the Linux nvidia installer. You will need the kernel source and the gcc compiler installed. It will compile and link code. You need to run it as root when X isn't running. "init level 3".

Turgidson · 02-13-2009, 12:45 PM

Thanks again. Will do this.

While I am at it, is this also the way to get video codecs? I was able to muddle my way through to our repository of TV and movies (mpg) on our NAS drive using samba, but when I tried to play any of them, I kept getting the message from the player that video codecs were missing. Do I get these in the same way?

Thanks

P

farslayer · 02-13-2009, 01:02 PM

Page 3 of this opensuse how-to covers adding repositories to opensuse, page 4 shows installing video codecs so you can play your media files..

http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfec...opensuse-11-p3

Turgidson · 02-13-2009, 01:28 PM

The codec install looks easy. Now if I can just get past the "Does this movie (screen) make me look fat?" problem.

Thanks again all.

Paul

jschiwal · 02-13-2009, 06:25 PM

Players like mplayer and xine have an aspect ratio adjustment. If you play a 4x3 movie with a 16x9 aspect ratio, they will look fat. The same thing happens if you have a 16x9 LCD or Plasma television and have the screen stretched to 16:9. You will need to play it with black bars on the left and right.

Look at the man page for mplayer. I've found the -vf cropdetect option very useful for full screen (-fs) playback.
It prints out the crop option as it plays. Simply copy it and restart mplayer with that option.

Turgidson · 02-13-2009, 09:24 PM

Will do after I have fixed my basic screen resolution problem. Right now, the monitor still thinks it is 4:3 and is stretched to 16:10.

Something left for Sunday evening, because I'm tied up most of the weekend. Will let you know how it goes. Thanks again.

P

Turgidson · 02-14-2009, 07:41 PM

Thanks to all. Resolution problem was solved using the nVidia drivers from the repository, and imported through Yast. One additional item... once the driver was imported, I had to run the driver installer (nvidia-config), and then restart the computer. After that, all the fat little icons returned to normal aspect.

Next, on to the video codecs.

P