(solved) incorrect screen resolution: Pentium4 + Mobility Radeon 7500

[Member cyrilus31]

I don’t know if I must post there but
there is something strange (in fact it’s just I don’t know the cause). OOTB antiX 16, antiX 17 and MX 17 can’t find the right screen resolution of my laptop and I had to force it via newmode and addmode commands. Strangely, never had any problem with MX 16.1.

It’s not that annoying but it’s merely curiosity.

edited by skidoo (split to its own topic)

[Member cyrilus31]

And some info in case of need from my MX install

System:    Host: cyril Kernel: 3.16.0-4-686-pae i686 (32 bit) Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3
           Distro: MX-16 i386 Migrated
Machine:   Device: portable System: Dell product: Inspiron 5100
           Mobo: Dell model: 09U808 BIOS: Dell v: A32 date: 10/18/2004
Battery    BAT0: charge: 64.5 Wh 208.1% condition: 31.0/64.5 Wh (48%)
CPU:       Single core Intel Pentium 4 (-UP-) cache: 512 KB speed: 2391 MHz (max)
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RV200/M7 [Mobility Radeon 7500]
           Display Server: X.Org 1.16.4 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1024x768@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI R100 (RV200 4C57) x86/MMX/SSE2 DRI2 GLX Version: 1.3
Audio:     Card Intel 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller
           driver: snd_intel8x0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.16.0-4-686-pae
Network:   Card-1: Broadcom BCM4401 100Base-T
           IF: N/A state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
           Card-2: Broadcom BCM4306 802.11b/g Wireless LAN Controller
           driver: b43-pci-bridge
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: 00:11:50:3a:6c:08
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 160.0GB (8.5% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: SAMSUNG_HM160HC size: 160.0GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 47G used: 13G (29%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 161 Uptime: 11 min Memory: 314.4/1007.5MB
           Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.21

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by cyrilus31.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

What does

xrandr

spit out.

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Member cyrilus31]

Here is the output

$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 800 x 600, maximum 4096 x 4096
VGA-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS connected 800x600+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
   800x600       59.96* 
   848x480       59.94  
   720x480       59.94  
   640x480       59.94  
S-video disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

[Member skidoo]

a websearch found this page explaining howto get up and running with RadeonDriver

[Member cyrilus31]

Ati and radeon drivers are loaded. So I don’t know what to do next.
FWIW, MX16 uses linux kernel 3.16 but others uses above versions. A clue?

[Member skidoo]

debian reference page found in websearch

The amdgpu driver in Debian 9 “Stretch” supports newer AMD GPUs.

The radeon driver in Debian 8 “Jessie” supports R100 to Hawaii (Radeon 7000 – Radeon R9 290) GPUs. See the radeon(4) manual page and the radeon page on the X wiki for more information.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

cyrilus31 wrote:

[AMD/ATI] RV200/M7 [Mobility Radeon 7500]

That is not a newer exotic chip that requires a newer kernel. Or even exotic ati driver, When you say you installed the radeon driver. Did you follow MX linux instructions?

https://mxlinux.org/wiki/antix-faqs-applications/guide-smxisgfxiinxi

sgfxi is the tool supplied for proprietary video driver installs I use when I wanna run a non open source driver in my MX linux installations.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by rokytnji.

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Member cyrilus31]

rokytnji wrote:

That is not a newer exotic chip that requires a newer kernel. Or even exotic ati driver, When you say you installed the radeon driver. Did you follow MX linux instructions?

My guess : newer kernel has difficulty with this old card (rv 200 released in 2001). Does it make sense? When I start MX with the 3.16 kernel given by default I can select 1024×768 but if I try a newer one I can’t go beyond 800*600 (except if I force the resolution).

@Roky: as far as I remember, I installed nothing and let everyhting by default concerning display in my MX16 install

Guys, I’m counting on you 😉

And just for info, everything works perfectly, except I must force the resolution after login. That was the subject of my topic.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by cyrilus31.

[Member skidoo]

Did you read the debian reference page at the link i posted?

PLEASE DON’T POST HERE AGAIN UNTIL YOU’VE READ THE LINKED PAGE
AND HAVE APPLIED THE STEPS IT INSTRUCTS.

IN YOUR FOLLOWUP POST:

SPEND MORE THAN 2 SENTENCES EXPLAINING EXACTLY WHAT STEPS YOU PERFORMED AND THE EXACT OUTCOME.

The radeon driver in Debian 8 “Jessie” supports R100 to Hawaii (Radeon 7000 – Radeon R9 290) GPUs. See the radeon(4) manual page and the radeon page on the X wiki for more information.

Firmware

Proprietary, binary-only firmware (aka microcode) was removed from the Debian kernel’s radeon DRM driver in linux-2.6 2.6.29-1, to resolve Debian bug 494009. The firmware can be provided by installing the firmware-amd-graphics or firmware-linux-nonfree package.

Without this package installed, poor 2D/3D performance in the radeon driver is commonly experienced. Some GPUs may require firmware to operate the X Window System, or do dual display.

Installation

The following procedure will install the open source display driver packages, DRI modules (for 3D acceleration) and driver firmware/microcode:

Add “contrib” and “non-free” components to /etc/apt/sources.list, for example:

# Debian 8 “Jessie”
deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free

Update the list of available packages:

# apt-get update

Install the firmware-linux-nonfree, libgl1-mesa-dri and xserver-xorg-video-ati packages:

# apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree libgl1-mesa-dri xserver-xorg-video-ati

Restart your system to load GPU device firmware.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by skidoo.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by skidoo.

[Anonymous]

Guys, I’m counting on you 😉

You can easily do this as suggested by @anti here…

Changing resolution in ARandR

[Member cyrilus31]

Sorry to disappoint you but I will write only one sentence : all the packages are already the newest versions.

I like your valuable contribution and I know we owe you much in this community but please don’t be so patronizing with people less knowledgeable than you are (and sure I’m part of them).

And I already explained that everything works concerning performance even 3d accel (in an embryonic state for such an old card).

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by cyrilus31.

[Member cyrilus31]

@Male : thank you for the tip but my concern is a bit different. In my case, my screen default resolution (1024×768) is not available at startup. I know how to force the value, so my problem is not a real one, just that I wanted to know the cause.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

just that I wanted to know the cause.

Well? In my mind. This pretty much answers your question.

@Roky: as far as I remember, I installed nothing and let everything by default concerning display in my MX16 install

Linux distros and kernels and open source drivers cannot cover all computer gear on this planet perfectly. From crt monitors to video chips lcd and phones. So some user interaction is required from time to time. I have learned to live with this being a custom motorcycle builder.

I figure male, and skidoo have you covered if you want to play around a bit. Up to you. As always. I screw up playing around all the time. Just ask skidoo, Anti, or others. 😀

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Member cyrilus31]

Tried antiX 13.2. 1024×768 resolution available and enabled out of the box.
From antiX 16 on (not tested version 15), I need to force the correct resolution.

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