Re: [gentoo-user] Intel GM965

[W.Kenworthy]

On Thu, 2009-10-15 at 21:36 -0400, Albert Hopkins wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-10-16 at 08:47 +0800, W.Kenworthy wrote:
> > xorg with hal does not work well on many systems - and hal on my
> > laptop
> > (i915) was a disaster.
>
> Well I guess YMMV.  I have 3 machines using i915 drivers and all of them
> work flawless with hal and no xorg.conf.  Even the laptop which I'm
> using now.  I get all the resolutions that the laptop's LCD uses and
> plus I'm able to plug it in into an external monitor and use one or both
> screens.  All three pointers work (touchpad, trackpoint & external
> mouse), GLX works, KMS works... even my i915-based HTPC that connects to
> my TV through HDMI works (1080p, HDMI audio out) with no xorg.conf.
>
> On the contrary, people I usually see that had to use config files with
> the new xorg were people who used proprietary graphics drivers.
>
> -a

What happens on the laptop when the external projector/screen wants
1280x1024 that isn't on the laptops internal LCD (my normal operation
mode with an external monitor on my desk)? - it tries to force a common
screen which is 1024x768 and wont acknowledge that the laptop hardware
is quite happy with 1024x768 - the ext LCD looks terrible compared with
the LCD native resolution.  On one external projector it even went to
800x600 (even though it seemed that 1024x768 was common).  

What happens when the screen sets a resolution it thinks the external
can do, which it does but it either tears (often seems to happen as
projectors age, though you can usually select a lower resolution using
xrandr) or goes black? - Ive had cases where both the internal LCD and
external monitor go black together - though not for awhile :(  Many of
our projectors seem to advertise high resolutions to the laptop, but are
actually a lot lower, using conversion to display it - usually quite
poorly.  With a 1366x768 screen on the laptop, a few projectors accept
that but badly distort in X or Y to fit the 4x3 aspect ratio they use -
note that these are institutionally managed displays so I don't get
access to the controls - I have to fit in with them :(  Then there is
Mythtv, as 1366x768 isnt the same as 1360x768 which my 3 digital TV's
with PC inputs (not HDMI) want, 1360x768 is unavailable unless I
USE="-hal" for xorg-server, and then turn off EDID and DDC in xorg.conf.
And yes, it works perfectly when I do.  And I didnt need to do this
before X tried to get too smart for itself.

The problem with using hal is not so much that it often does not work
well (which it doesn't), but that you cant override it to get the
control back.  People might be satisfied with it if they don't know
better, but I have had a lot of fights over the years to get X to do
what I want and when it wont do what I know it can do, its really
frustrating, especially as my workflow is set around various resolutions
in particular locations.

Its a lot easier on a desktop, but even there I dont have a single
system that is totally happy with no xorg.conf.  Problems range from
ignoring the xorg ati driver in favour of vesa (why?), to choosing
resolutions that are not optimal so these have partial xorg.conf's to
fix just those areas that need overriding.

If windows and Macs can do it without arcane manual configuration, why
cant X?  Maybe in the future it will get sorted, but at the moment they
have a long way to go.

BillK