[gentoo-user] vmware/xorg.conf issues

[Bill Roberts]

I am going NUTS trying to figure out how to make full-screen mode work
properly in vmware-workstation 5.

I can go into full-screen mode, but it looks like only half of the
lines get drawn, so it's very ugly, impossible to read.

I had beautiful screens in 4.5.2 which turned ugly at some point
(don't know causal factor). I emerged 5, got beautiful screens again.

I have been trying to get mplayer & hdtv working, so I've been playing
around with xorg.conf a lot, and I guess I managed to break it. I think
I need additional modelines to make vmware work properly, not sure how
to get the right ones. 

At some point in this blur, I used a tool which automatically
calculated all valid modelines for my combination of nvidia 6600gt and
Dell monitor, using DDC and EDID. I threw them into xorg.conf, they
didn't fix mplayer problems, I thought I didn't need them removed them
without backup. Now I can't find the tool I used (I thought it was
read-edid, but that won't run properly on my platform), I don't see a
good way of reproducing the modelines, and I'm not even sure that they
were responsible for the good screens I had in vmware.

Both my vmware virtual machines (XP), and my real desktop run
1024x768, 24 bit color.

Oh, one other oddity. The vmware modules vmmon and vmnet which should
be loaded by /etc/init.d/vmware in default mode, don't get loaded.
Can't figure out why.

We are buying 15 Thinkpads T-43, I'm planning on installing Gentoo w/
vmware-workstation on top to create a mobile classroom. But I may have
to use XP plus vmware if I can't sort these full-screen issues out.

Any pointers are appreciated.

Bill Roberts