allow clients to autodetect resolution?

[prof_booty]

Hi: I'm testing Plop Linux v4.0.6 via PXE boot via NFS. I've successfully been able to boot several clients and have added the Gnome option as well.

Everything looks good when I boot with an old school monitor at 1024x768. But clients with a widescreen monitor get 1024x768 as well and everything looks stretched. Is there a way to have clients auto-detect and set the best resolution, either 1024x768 or 1280x800?

Thanks,

Chris

[Elmar]

i don't know if there is a tool to autodetect wide screens. when you create a xorg.conf with different resolutions, then xorg takes the best resolution for the screen.

regards
elmar

[prof_booty]

Thanks for the quick response. I added "1280x800" to the screens section of /var/xorg.conf and restarted X, but the Gnome display manager does not display it as an option.

I know that when I pass bad vga= values to the boot parameters, the max resolution offered as an option is 1024x768. I know Windows can run 1280x800 on this machine, so I'm guessing the drivers are the issue? Would the RC release have a better chance of working?

I'd really like to use Plop for my little PXE boot project, but the screen resolution is a show stopper.  Thanks for any help you can give.

[Elmar]

the default driver is the vesa driver, you have to choose another driver. what graphic cards do you have?
with a simple script you can choose different xorg.confs before xorg starts

[prof_booty]

> what graphic cards do you have?

The widescreen has ATI Mobility Radeon X1300, the other has a Radeon X300.

I'm afraid I've never scripted changing drivers before, would I place it in the myscripts directory?

[prof_booty]

So I think I need to roll the fglrx driver in to the distro, is there any documentation or how-tos on how to add this driver in a PXE boot environment?

[Elmar]

you can create a xorg.conf called xorg.conf.wide for the wide screen and copy the file to the required place whe the pc has a X1300 card.

the script could look like this

Code: [Select]

#!/bin/sh

if ( lspci|grep X1300 >& /dev/null )
then
    cp /media/pluspacks/xorg.conf.wide /var/xorg.conf
fi

fglrx is the 3d driver for ati cards, do you really need it? you can use the xorg driver for ati cards "ati" or "radeon". both are already included.

[prof_booty]

Thanks so much for your patience, I think I am almost there. I don't need 3d, the xorg driver should be fine. Is the boot parameter "xdriver=xorg"?

[Elmar]

Is the boot parameter "xdriver=xorg"?

i dont understand what you mean

regards
elmar

[prof_booty]

Sorry, some other PXE distros I saw had a boot parameter to set the driver X would use. I was able to modify /var/xorg.conf and load the "radeon" driver. It was very dim at color depth 16 (seems to be a known bug http://www.pubbs.net/201007/xorg/4314-bug-28901-new-ati-driver-returns-dim-screen-at-color-depth-16.html) but at depth 24 all looks well. I'll take your advice and copy new xorg.conf files depending on the output from lspci. Thanks so much for your help!

[Elmar]

Sorry, some other PXE distros I saw had a boot parameter to set the driver X would use.

no problem

I was able to modify /var/xorg.conf and load the "radeon" driver. It was very dim at color depth 16 (seems to be a known bug http://www.pubbs.net/201007/xorg/4314-bug-28901-new-ati-driver-returns-dim-screen-at-color-depth-16.html) but at depth 24 all looks well.

thanks for the info

best regards
elmar