X 4.2 problems ("out of range") with Matrox G450

[Faheem Mitha <faheem@email.unc.edu>]

Dear People,

I am currently tracking sarge. My video card is the Matrox Millenium
G450. Recently, X 4.2 arrived in sarge. As it turns out, it broke my
working XF86Config-4 file for 4.1, though I didn't realise it right
away, since I keep the X server up and running for long periods.

I sent in a bug (169055) to xserver-xfree86, (though this might not be
the right place). It can be viewed at
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?archive=no&bug=169055 

I haven't received any reply about it yet, but then Branden Robinson
is presumably swamped with these things.

I won't try to reproduce the entire bug report here, but in a
nutshell, with my original working config file for 4.1, which
corresponds to a resolution of 1280x1024, the server tries to come up,
but then hangs with a blank screen. The X logs complain about "out of
range errors", and my monitor also puts up a little box saying "Out of
Range" which I have never seen before. I can get a working X server
for 4.2, but only with the lower resolution of 1024x768. Note that the
config file in the bug report is the original config file referred to
at the beginning of this paragraph.

I have seen other similar reports on the net, which leads me to
believe it might be a bug, but if so it should be much more visible,
because Matrox cards are pretty common. So, can anyone offer me any
enlightenment on this?

I have downgraded to 4.1 and my original XF86Config-4 file still works
with 4.1 (otherwise I would fear for my sanity), and I've pinned all
the X packages (all 27 of them) so apt is kept happy. But clearly I
can't stay with 4.1 forever.

                                                 Faheem.