Arch Linux

awado

Member

Registered: 2014-02-13

Posts: 10

Custom screen resolution: Is it also hardware related?

Here's running the latest Arch Linux on a HP ProLiant, which has a Matrox graphics card. I've modded the case and mounted a nice 7" TFT display, which is connected via VGA. The TFT has a native resolution of 800x480. I cannot get it booting up in this resolution. (So it's not an xorg issue, I don't use a window manager here.) vesafb and uvesafb offer resulotions 800x600, 1024x768 and so on, but not 800x480. I tried to set 800x480 in nano /etc/modprobe.d/uvesafb.conf, but it did not help. Is it hardware related?

lspci -v

...
01:00.1 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd. MGA G200EH (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company iLO4
        Flags: fast devsel, NUMA node 0
        Memory at f9000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at fbee0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Memory at fb000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8M]
        Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
        Capabilities: [a8] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [b0] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [c0] Express Legacy Endpoint, MSI 00
        Kernel modules: mgag200
...

cat /etc/modprobe.d/uvesafb.conf

options uvesafb mode_option=800x480M-32 scroll=ywrap

mich41

Member

Registered: 2012-06-22

Posts: 796

Re: Custom screen resolution: Is it also hardware related?

Wow, that's a dinosaur. IIRC, VESA BIOS supports only some fixed number of resolutions. Back in the day it was used by Intel Xorg driver for modesetting and patching VESA BIOS was necessary to get any 16:10 resolution because none was supported out of the box. Those were days

BTW, I'm sure there were some ways to get the exact list of supported resolutions, but I honestly don't remember anymore - try google.

You may also try using matroxfb instead of uvesafb, it's a native Linux driver which understand Matrox hardware so it may fare better.

awado

Member

Registered: 2014-02-13

Posts: 10

Re: Custom screen resolution: Is it also hardware related?

Yes, it's a jurassic card. If I could find matroxfb somewhere... Cannot find anything with pacman and AUR. Is it included in another paket?

mich41

Member

Registered: 2012-06-22

Posts: 796

Re: Custom screen resolution: Is it also hardware related?

This should be in the kernel package, but it seems that Arch doesn't provide it.

However, now I see that this GPU is supported by mgag200, which has KMS support and should provide a framebuffer in native resolution. At least I think so - other KMS drivers do. What if you drop uvesafb altogether?

Maybe you need the video parameter?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ke … de_setting

Are you able to set this resolution in Xorg, btw? It's also possible that hardware simply doesn't support it for whatever stupid reason.

awado

Member

Registered: 2014-02-13

Posts: 10

Re: Custom screen resolution: Is it also hardware related?

I already went throught the whole link you provided. No success.

Are you able to set this resolution in Xorg, btw?

Don't have Xorg there.

It's also possible that hardware simply doesn't support it for whatever stupid reason.

Well, that's my initial question. :-D

What makes me wonder: In some situations there is a non-standard resolution 832x624 being set. Reminds me of my old Performa 475...