Notorious SiS 671/771 and external VGA monitor.

[Member DaRk_dOg]

Hello everyone,

I have an old laptop with the hate-it-or-hate-it SiS671/771 chip, which is well known to work with almost none of the mainstream distributions out there. Unless you try hard.
To my surprise antiX came to my attention and, along with PCLinuxOS, is probably one of the few that work out-of-the-box with my graphics chipset! However I still have a small issue and would like to short it out: I want to use an external monitor through VGA port but it seems that after the driver is loaded, I get no VGA output:

demo@antix1:~
$ xrandr -q
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 800
default connected 1280x800+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1280x800      60.00* 
   1024x768      60.00  
   800x600       60.00  
   640x480       60.00  

The monitor seems to work at a low resolution while on live-USB start screen and while booting.

Thanks in advance.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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Post a

inxi -Fxz

So we get a better idea of what you are running. I can only tell that you are running live .

• This reply was modified 5 years 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 DaRk_dOg]

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demo@antix1:~
$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: antix1 Kernel: 4.9.87-antix.1-amd64-smp x86_64 bits: 64 gcc: 6.3.0 Desktop: IceWM 1.4.2
           Distro: antiX-17.1_x64-full Heather Heyer 17 March 2018
Machine:   Device: other-vm? System: clevo product: M7x0S v: Rev. A1 serial: N/A
           Mobo: clevo model: M7x0S v: Bottom serial: N/A BIOS: Phoenix v: 6.00 date: 10/02/0892
CPU:       Dual core Intel Pentium Dual T3200 (-MCP-) arch: Conroe rev.13 cache: 1024 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 ssse3) bmips: 8006
           clock speeds: max: 2000 MHz 1: 1667 MHz 2: 1000 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 771/671 PCIE VGA Display Adapter bus-ID: 01:00.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: sisimedia Resolution: 1280x800@60.00hz
           OpenGL: renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.9, 128 bits)
           version: 3.3 Mesa 13.0.6 Direct Render: Yes
Audio:     Card Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Azalia Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:0f.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.9.87-antix.1-amd64-smp
Network:   Card-1: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 191 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
           driver: sis190 v: 1.4 port: 1000 bus-ID: 00:04.0
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8187B Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps Network Adapter driver: rtl8187 usb-ID: 001-002
           IF: wlan0 state: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 176.0GB (0.6% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST9160310AS size: 160.0GB
           ID-2: USB /dev/sdb model: USB_Flash_Drive size: 16.0GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 2.9G used: 20M (1%) fs: overlay dev: N/A
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 1.02GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 52.8C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 142 Uptime: 6 min Memory: 449.7/3686.1MB Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 6.3.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.4.121) inxi: 2.3.54 

[Moderator caprea]

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You sure already tried
xrandr --auto
or maybe
xrandr --output VGA-0 --auto

Also some laptops have a FN F8 or something key to activate the external ouput
or the output can be dis/enabled in the bios.
Anyway, its probably not a good sign that xrandr only shows “default” instead of LVDS.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by caprea.

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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Might help or not. I gave up on obsolete proprietary drivers with obsolete hardware and newer xorg playing nice together. I just roll with vesa and call it a day.

But to each their own.

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=132600

I’ll post a example of one my unsupported graphics chips and how vesa looks on my old laptop.

https://www.antixforum.com/forums/topic/antix-17-full-install-on-ibm-t23/

Edit:

Might help or not.

After reading the thread myself. I feel I should not have posted it < the link > . I have never seen such a fubar thread on graphics in a long time.

• This reply was modified 5 years ago by rokytnji.
• This reply was modified 5 years 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

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