xorg.conf: can't configure resolution lower than 1152x864

kikinovak · 2008-04-15 04:36:25

Hi,

I just installed Arch (base system + X11 + XFCE + handful of apps) on five computers in our public library. One of the machines has an ATI graphic card:

[biblio@mediatheque1:~] $ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (rev 01)

Every machine has a 17'' flatscreen monitor. Usually, I configure xorg.conf to use a resolution of 1024x768. Some of the users here are older and often visually impaired, and I generally avoid using resolutions higher than this on this type of monitor. But I can't seem to configure it on my ATI card. Ah, yes: I'm using the open source xf86-video-ati driver. And here's the relevant bits from xorg.conf:

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "Card0"
        Monitor    "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth 24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
                Modes "1152x864"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

When I specify 1024x768 and restart X, the resolution won't change. So I leave it at that, since when I specify nothing, it looks like it want to default to something even higher, my guess is 1280x1024, which is barely legible on a 17'' monitor.

I had a similar problem on the other machines, using recent Intel cards. I found a workaround, in that I replaced the recent xf86-video-intel drivers by the older xf86-video-i810 driver. Only the latter seemed to accept the 1024x768 resolution.

Any suggestions for this?

kikinovak · 2008-04-15 08:25:04

I'll answer this myself. After leafing through my logfiles, I found the following solution. Add this line to the Display SubSection:

Virtual 1024 768

Last edited by kikinovak (2008-04-15 08:25:27)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-04-15 04:36:25

xorg.conf: can't configure resolution lower than 1152x864

#2 2008-04-15 08:25:04

Re: xorg.conf: can't configure resolution lower than 1152x864

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