Re: [gentoo-user] Intel GM965

[Albert Hopkins]

On Fri, 2009-10-16 at 10:19 +0800, W.Kenworthy wrote:
> 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
> -

Ok this sorta sounds like what happens if I boot RipLinuX into X and the
external monitor is connected.  What happens is that the built-in LCD
does not turn on and the external which is connected via VGA comes on
but gets the wrong sync frequency from the computer so I get no
display :(.  I'm not sure if RipLinuX uses hal or not (I think not) but
I know it uses the vesa driver.  In Gentoo though it works fine, with
the intel driver (I don't even have the vesa driver built in Gentoo).

Admittedly I haven't connected with a projector yet.

My TV does have a VGA connector though.  Let me see if I can connect my
laptop to it real quick...

... well it came up just fine... confused the heck out of compiz though
and had to restart compiz.   But it even runs my TV at 1920x1080 and the
last time I tried Gentoo through the VGA it could not run it at that
resolution (which is why I wanted to get a HTPC that had HDMI).

I will admit that it's not 100% flawless and it is still fairly new
stuff (X+hal) but it's been working quite well for me.

> 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.

People have been saying that for over a decade.  It's just a fact that,
for desktops anyway, hardware vendors test their products extensively on
Windows and MacOS and they don't on Linux :(.