Mayday - Installed Fresh Archlinux on Laptop - Resolution stuck 1152x864, need 1440x900??

[David C. Rankin]

Listmates,

New drive for my laptop so I dedicated it to Arch. Net install with 2009.08 went fine (although there really should be a warning when you leave install WITHOUT configuring the bootloader). [the /arch/setup menu autoadvances when you leave Configure System and if you click Done and downarrow anticipating moving to the next item,  you can easily miss configuring the bootloader (I did ;-)]

The problem I have is that my laptop is stuck in 1152x864 resolution. For the text install that is fantastic, but when you start kde -- not so good. (should be 1440x900) The card is an RS690M (radeon 1200) and the radeon driver was loaded by default. The modules configured are:

22:46 alchemy:~> lsmod | grep rad
radeon                716352  1
ttm                    43776  1 radeon
drm                   191392  2 radeon,ttm
i2c_algo_bit            6980  1 radeon
i2c_core               25664  4 radeon,i2c_piix4,drm,i2c_algo_bit

THE WEIRD PART...

I have Arch on the drive I just took out and it goes to 1440x900 just fine.

I am not using an xorg.conf, so I am pretty much at X's mercy. I use /etc/rc.d/kdm start from runlevel 3 to start kdm. It goes to 1152x864 instead of 1440x900. I don't understand how to control the new KMS stuff. I have check the kde4 settings for Display Size and Orientations, but the maximum allowed is 1152x864:

http://www.3111skyline.com/download/bugs/kde4/kde4-syssettings-display.jpg

http://www.3111skyline.com/download/bugs/kde4/kde4-syssettings-1164.png

What is the trick?

Also, when I try to start xdm from inittab with the default x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/xdm -nodaemon
I get the disabling for 5 seconds, respawning too fast error. So, what's the trick here? I bet there related...

I have put the Xorg.0.log on the server as well:

http://www.3111skyline.com/download/bugs/kde4/Xorg.0.log

It looks like the dang thing is using the vesa driver?? I'll add radeon to modules, but It's loaded already so I don't think that's going to help. Anybody know what's happening here? This is the first install where I haven't installed KDE3, so i don't know if that is a part of the issue either.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you need to see anything else, just let me know.  Thanks.


--
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
www.rankinlawfirm.com

[David C. Rankin]

On Tuesday 03 November 2009 23:31:20 David C. Rankin wrote:

> Listmates,
>
> New drive for my laptop so I dedicated it to Arch. Net install with 2009.08 went fine (although there really should be a warning when you leave install WITHOUT configuring the bootloader). [the /arch/setup menu autoadvances when you leave Configure System and if you click Done and downarrow anticipating moving to the next item,  you can easily miss configuring the bootloader (I did ;-)]
>
> The problem I have is that my laptop is stuck in 1152x864 resolution. For the text install that is fantastic, but when you start kde -- not so good. (should be 1440x900) The card is an RS690M (radeon 1200) and the radeon driver was loaded by default. The modules configured are:
>
> 22:46 alchemy:~> lsmod | grep rad
> radeon                716352  1
> ttm                    43776  1 radeon
> drm                   191392  2 radeon,ttm
> i2c_algo_bit            6980  1 radeon
> i2c_core               25664  4 radeon,i2c_piix4,drm,i2c_algo_bit
>
> THE WEIRD PART...
>
> I have Arch on the drive I just took out and it goes to 1440x900 just fine.
>
> I am not using an xorg.conf, so I am pretty much at X's mercy. I use /etc/rc.d/kdm start from runlevel 3 to start kdm. It goes to 1152x864 instead of 1440x900. I don't understand how to control the new KMS stuff. I have check the kde4 settings for Display Size and Orientations, but the maximum allowed is 1152x864:
>
> http://www.3111skyline.com/download/bugs/kde4/kde4-syssettings-display.jpg
>
> http://www.3111skyline.com/download/bugs/kde4/kde4-syssettings-1164.png
>
> What is the trick?
>
> Also, when I try to start xdm from inittab with the default x:5:respawn:/usr/bin/xdm -nodaemon
> I get the disabling for 5 seconds, respawning too fast error. So, what's the trick here? I bet there related...
>
> I have put the Xorg.0.log on the server as well:
>
> http://www.3111skyline.com/download/bugs/kde4/Xorg.0.log
>
> It looks like the dang thing is using the vesa driver?? I'll add radeon to modules, but It's loaded already so I don't think that's going to help. Anybody know what's happening here? This is the first install where I haven't installed KDE3, so i don't know if that is a part of the issue either.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you need to see anything else, just let me know.  Thanks.
>
>
>

Listmates, I have more info. It looks like an xdpy problem:

screen #0:
  print screen:    no
  dimensions:    1152x864 pixels (370x231 millimeters)
  resolution:    79x95 dots per inch                  
  depths (7):    24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32              
  root window id:    0x101                            
  depth of root window:    24 planes                  
  number of colormaps:    minimum 1, maximum 1        
  default colormap:    0x20                          
  default number of colormap cells:    256            
  preallocated pixels:    black 0, white 16777215    
  options:    backing-store NO, save-unders NO        
  largest cursor:    1152x864                        
  current input event mask:    0x5a403c              
    ButtonPressMask          ButtonReleaseMask        EnterWindowMask          
    LeaveWindowMask          KeymapStateMask          StructureNotifyMask      
    SubstructureNotifyMask   SubstructureRedirectMask PropertyChangeMask      
  number of visuals:    64                                                    
  default visual id:  0x21                                                    


resolutions should be 99x99. How do I fix this ??

[Jan de Groot]

On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 23:31 -0600, David C. Rankin wrote:
>
> http://www.3111skyline.com/download/bugs/kde4/Xorg.0.log 

Install xf86-video-ati, the vesa driver you're using now is limited to
standard VESA resolutions, which usually excludes widescreen
resolutions.

[Dieter Plaetinck]

On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 23:31:20 -0600
"David C. Rankin" <drankinatty@...> wrote:

> Listmates,
>
> New drive for my laptop so I dedicated it to Arch. Net install with
> 2009.08 went fine (although there really should be a warning when you
> leave install WITHOUT configuring the bootloader). [the /arch/setup
> menu autoadvances when you leave Configure System and if you click
> Done and downarrow anticipating moving to the next item,  you can
> easily miss configuring the bootloader (I did ;-)]

arch is not, was not and will never be a hand-holding distro.
if anyone doesn't pay attention and just skips steps it's that persons
own problem imho. (in fact the interactive installer already
does too much handholding)

Dieter

[christopher floess]

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Dieter Plaetinck <dieter@...> wrote:

> On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 23:31:20 -0600
> "David C. Rankin" <drankinatty@...> wrote:
>
>> Listmates,
>>
>> New drive for my laptop so I dedicated it to Arch. Net install with
>> 2009.08 went fine (although there really should be a warning when you
>> leave install WITHOUT configuring the bootloader). [the /arch/setup
>> menu autoadvances when you leave Configure System and if you click
>> Done and downarrow anticipating moving to the next item,  you can
>> easily miss configuring the bootloader (I did ;-)]
>
> arch is not, was not and will never be a hand-holding distro.
> if anyone doesn't pay attention and just skips steps it's that persons
> own problem imho. (in fact the interactive installer already
> does too much handholding)

Slightly off topic for the thread, but I hope the interactive
installer doesn't go away. My skills aren't that far along yet.

I was however at least smart enough not to think could skip steps ;)

-- chris

[Dan McGee]

On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Dieter Plaetinck <dieter@...> wrote:

> On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 23:31:20 -0600
> "David C. Rankin" <drankinatty@...> wrote:
>
>> Listmates,
>>
>> New drive for my laptop so I dedicated it to Arch. Net install with
>> 2009.08 went fine (although there really should be a warning when you
>> leave install WITHOUT configuring the bootloader). [the /arch/setup
>> menu autoadvances when you leave Configure System and if you click
>> Done and downarrow anticipating moving to the next item,  you can
>> easily miss configuring the bootloader (I did ;-)]
>
> arch is not, was not and will never be a hand-holding distro.
> if anyone doesn't pay attention and just skips steps it's that persons
> own problem imho. (in fact the interactive installer already
> does too much handholding)

So he maybe came up with an answer to the wrong problem. Problem as stated:
"there really should be a warning when you leave install WITHOUT
configuring the bootloader"
and problem as I read it from the context:
"the installer auto-advances so it is really easy to hit quit on
accident if you were expecting to have to hit down and enter"

You can't possibly justify the second stated problem as a hand-holding
mistake, unless you mean we shouldn't even auto-advance. A simple
confirm quit dialog would solve the issue here as people would quickly
realize they missed a step.

-Dan

[Dieter Plaetinck]

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 07:17:38 -0600
Dan McGee <dpmcgee@...> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 5:04 AM, Dieter Plaetinck
> <dieter@...> wrote:
> > On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 23:31:20 -0600
> > "David C. Rankin" <drankinatty@...> wrote:
> >
> >> Listmates,
> >>
> >> New drive for my laptop so I dedicated it to Arch. Net install with
> >> 2009.08 went fine (although there really should be a warning when
> >> you leave install WITHOUT configuring the bootloader).
> >> [the /arch/setup menu autoadvances when you leave Configure System
> >> and if you click Done and downarrow anticipating moving to the
> >> next item,  you can easily miss configuring the bootloader (I
> >> did ;-)]
> >
> > arch is not, was not and will never be a hand-holding distro.
> > if anyone doesn't pay attention and just skips steps it's that
> > persons own problem imho. (in fact the interactive installer already
> > does too much handholding)
>
> So he maybe came up with an answer to the wrong problem. Problem as
> stated: "there really should be a warning when you leave install
> WITHOUT configuring the bootloader"
> and problem as I read it from the context:
> "the installer auto-advances so it is really easy to hit quit on
> accident if you were expecting to have to hit down and enter"
>
> You can't possibly justify the second stated problem as a hand-holding
> mistake, unless you mean we shouldn't even auto-advance. A simple
> confirm quit dialog would solve the issue here as people would quickly
> realize they missed a step.
>
> -Dan

well, even if you didn't expect the auto-advance behavior, i still
expect users to read the name of the option before
they activate it.  trying to detect/recover from silly user errors such
as not doing that is what i call hand-holding.

that said, a simple confirmation dialog would add only 1 line of code,
so if someone sends the patch (or files a feature request) it can be
done.

Dieter

[David C. Rankin]

On Tuesday 03 November 2009 23:31:20 David C. Rankin wrote:
> The problem I have is that my laptop is stuck in 1152x864 resolution. For the text install that is fantastic, but when you start kde -- not so good. (should be 1440x900) The card is an RS690M (radeon 1200) and the radeon driver was loaded by default. The modules configured are:
>

Well,

It's done and working well. There were a couple of layers missed items to get the proper resolution. First, despite the radeon driver being shown as loaded with lsmod, the xf86-video-ati package wasn't installed so the driver for the graphics wasn't present causing X/kdm t default to framebuffer which has 1152x864 and 1400x1050, but not 1440x900. Installing the ati package allowed me to set up the early start configuration KMS with the radeon driver. Booting immediately placed me in a vt1 which was beautifully sized for my laptop display (I'm still not sure the exact text resolution, but it looks damn good -- I'll check the next time I'm there)

A  negative side effect of the new console resolution is that vi will NOT run. It errors out on start complaining about the text mode size being too big. Vim and mc handle the resolution without any problem.

In both kde and e16, the display does OK. (Not good speed wise, but damn good for normal operation) It is a big improvement over the normal kernel module/xorg.conf setup because now desktop effects work OK. There are still some effects that just flat do NOT work for any radeon card I have tried (exploding windows, cylinder rotate and sphere rotate to name a few. When you attempt to activate exploding windows, "The following effects could not be activated, Explosion". With the cylinder and sphere, you get no feedback at all, they just don't work. (work fine on all my Nvidia boxes)

Oh, well. We are up. Thank you all for your great suggestions. I've got two more radeon projects/issues. One, tweaking the setting to see if I can get some additional performance out of the card (performance sucks with the ati and radeonhd drivers - 1065 FPS with the fglrx driver, 168 FPS with radeonhd, and 160 with ATI). Second, I get to play a bit more with git/bisect to find out where the radeonhd driver died for my laptop. I'll let you know if anything good comes from either.

       

[Byron Clark]

On Wed, Nov 04, 2009 at 03:38:26PM -0600, David C. Rankin wrote:
> A  negative side effect of the new console resolution is that vi will
> NOT run. It errors out on start complaining about the text mode size
> being too big. Vim and mc handle the resolution without any problem.

http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/15844

--
Byron Clark

[Jan de Groot]

On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 14:43 -0700, Byron Clark wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 04, 2009 at 03:38:26PM -0600, David C. Rankin wrote:
> > A  negative side effect of the new console resolution is that vi will
> > NOT run. It errors out on start complaining about the text mode size
> > being too big. Vim and mc handle the resolution without any problem.
>
> http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/15844

Most simple fix at this moment:
pacman -R vi; pacman -S vim; ln -s vim /usr/bin/vi

I hate the basic vi package, but that's because I'm used to the way vim
works with all its features not present in ex-vi or nvi.

[David C. Rankin]

On Wednesday 04 November 2009 15:50:02 Jan de Groot wrote:

> On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 14:43 -0700, Byron Clark wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 04, 2009 at 03:38:26PM -0600, David C. Rankin wrote:
> > > A  negative side effect of the new console resolution is that vi will
> > > NOT run. It errors out on start complaining about the text mode size
> > > being too big. Vim and mc handle the resolution without any problem.
> >
> > http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/15844
>
> Most simple fix at this moment:
> pacman -R vi; pacman -S vim; ln -s vim /usr/bin/vi
>
> I hate the basic vi package, but that's because I'm used to the way vim
> works with all its features not present in ex-vi or nvi.
>

I always do this to begin with, but it was a brand new install so I hadn't got
to the point of installing vim ( but I did -- real quick -- once I hit the vi
bug :-)


--
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
Rankin Law Firm, PLLC
510 Ochiltree Street
Nacogdoches, Texas 75961
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
www.rankinlawfirm.com