[SOLVED]Issues with Vesa driver setting resolution

x1101 · 2012-09-05 12:14:15

Hello, firstly, while this is my first post here, I've found many helpful threads that have answered may of my questions. That's actually one of the reasons I moved to arch.

Now, on to my issue. I've seen several posts similar to this, and have tried solutions offered, but to no avail. I had been using catalyst-total with a [AMD] nee ATI RS880 [Radeon HD 4250] (from lspci) with much success for quite some time, but after applying some updates on Monday (9-3-12), I was unable to get X started. I then rolled to xf86-video-ati, where X started, but only drew a cursor, and used 100% of one of my cores. I've now moved to xf86-video-vesa, and I get X (and GDM) running, but am unable to get correct resolution. My monitor can do 1920x1080, but the highest the driver seems to see as available is 1280x1024 (which kinda looks like crap).

likely relevant package versions

->pacman -Q linux xf86-video-vesa xorg-server
linux 3.5.3-1
xf86-video-vesa 2.3.2-1
xorg-server 1.12.4-1

relevant section from /var/log/Xorg.0.log

[  1811.778] (II) VESA(0): Monitor0: Using hsync range of 30.00-83.00 kHz
[  1811.778] (II) VESA(0): Monitor0: Using vrefresh range of 56.00-75.00 Hz
[  1811.778] (II) VESA(0): Monitor0: Using maximum pixel clock of 175.00 MHz
[  1811.778] (II) VESA(0): Not using mode "1920x1080" (no mode of this name)
[  1811.778] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "1400x1050" (no mode of this name)
[  1811.779] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "640x350" (no mode of this name)
[  1811.779] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "512x384" (no mode of this name)
[  1811.779] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "320x240" (no mode of this name)
[  1811.779] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "320x200" (no mode of this name)
[  1811.779] (--) VESA(0): Virtual size is 1280x1024 (pitch 1280)
[  1811.779] (**) VESA(0):  Built-in mode "1280x1024"
[  1811.779] (**) VESA(0):  Built-in mode "1280x1024"
[  1811.779] (**) VESA(0):  Built-in mode "1152x864"
[  1811.779] (**) VESA(0):  Built-in mode "1024x768"
[  1811.779] (**) VESA(0):  Built-in mode "800x600"
[  1811.779] (**) VESA(0):  Built-in mode "640x480"
[  1811.779] (**) VESA(0):  Built-in mode "720x400"
[  1811.779] (**) VESA(0): Display dimensions: (510, 290) mm
[  1811.779] (**) VESA(0): DPI set to (63, 89)
[  1811.779] (**) VESA(0): Using "Shadow Framebuffer"

my xorg.conf file (from /etc/X11/xorg.conf), which I've created by hand since switching to the vesa driver

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    DisplaySize    509 286    # In millimeters
    HorizSync      30-83
    VertRefresh    56-75
    ModelName      "H233H"
    Option         "DPMS"
    VendorName     "Acer"
    Modeline       "1920x1080"  172.80  1920 2040 2248 2576  1080 1081 1084 1118
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth   24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth      24
        Modes      "1920x1080"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

If someone can help, that would be much appreciated. If there is more information you need, just ask and I will be happy to provide it.

Last edited by x1101 (2012-09-09 12:08:57)

Lone_Wolf · 2012-09-06 21:29:29

The vesa driver is very limited and mainly useful as a fallback incase of trouble.

Did you follow the archlinux ATI wiki page for removal of catalyst and configuring for the video-ati driver ?
Especially removing unofficial catalyst repos and configuring KMS are important.

I suggest you switch to runlevel 3 boot (console) instead of booting to runlevel 5 ( X / GDM ) .
Then try again with video-ati, login as root and run startx.
This will start X in a minimal environment using autoconfiguration.
Post your complete Xorg0.log (it's big, so you might want to use a pastebin site for that).

x1101 · 2012-09-07 03:38:24

The vesa driver is very limited and mainly useful as a fallback incase of trouble.

I've got plenty of trouble, so I think its appropriate in this case

Did you follow the archlinux ATI wiki page for removal of catalyst and configuring for the video-ati driver ?
Especially removing unofficial catalyst repos and configuring KMS are important.

I don't believe I followed it exactly for removal. I had to do some fancy installs/removals to get catalyst-total removed and xf86-video-ati installed. But I've tried both the stock, and the -git (from AUR) of that package, with the same results. 100% CPU on one core, blank screen with cursor, and needing to ssh into the machine to do anything

I suggest you switch to runlevel 3 boot (console) instead of booting to runlevel 5 ( X / GDM ) .
Then try again with video-ati, login as root and run startx.
This will start X in a minimal environment using autoconfiguration.

I will give this a try, but I believe that the autoconfiguration fails to be any better than my manual one.

Post your complete Xorg0.log (it's big, so you might want to use a pastebin site for that).

I most certainly will, thank you for the help. I will try this and post the logs when I have some time.

x1101 · 2012-09-09 12:05:30

Hello, after several more hours to trying a large number of things, I found what I believe to be a series of issues preventing this from working. I believe this was due to an error on my part while removing the catalyst-total driver setup.

When switching to xf86-video-ati, and listing 'radeon' in the xorg.conf file for your driver, you need to ensure that this is set in /boot/grub/menu.lst as part of your kernel line

radeon.modeset=1

before I had that I was getting an error that

[KMS] drm report modesetting isn't supported.

After I corrected my KMS at boot time, I was able to startx at my monitor's native resolution. I appreciate the help I found on this post, and on the other posts in the Arch Forums that lead me to this solution. It was rather odd, but I got there.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-09-05 12:14:15

[SOLVED]Issues with Vesa driver setting resolution

#2 2012-09-06 21:29:29

Re: [SOLVED]Issues with Vesa driver setting resolution

#3 2012-09-07 03:38:24

Re: [SOLVED]Issues with Vesa driver setting resolution

#4 2012-09-09 12:05:30

Re: [SOLVED]Issues with Vesa driver setting resolution

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