Re: Screen setup

[Shaun ONeil <shaun@oneil.me.uk>]

On Mon, 2004-09-13 at 23:06, Michael Satterwhite wrote:
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> A friend has asked me to put Debian on his Sony Vaio. Things are going very 
> well except for the monitor setup. I'm using the Debian Installer 
> BusinessCard installer to put Sarge on (as it's about to become the stable 
> version, this seems right for him.)
> 
> The problem is that the monitor detection is only getting a small square in 
> the center of his screen for the display. Over half the screen is unused; 
> it's a large blank margin around the actual display. I haven't reached the 
> running of X yet, but I'm expecting it to be the same. I'm coming from a SuSE 
> background. If I were using SuSE, I'd run either Yast or Sax and correct the 
> configuration. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I don't have a clue how to 
> address this without those tools.
> 
> Could someone point me in the right direction to correct this? Would really 
> appreciate it.
> 
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I'm somewhat confused by "haven't reached the running of X yet", so I'm
assuming you're referring to the console.

Either way, the issue you're hitting is resolution .. LCD/TFT's have a
fixed phyisical resolution (that is, each pixel exists as a physical
element).  So without any further trickery, a low resolution won't
result in larger pixels .. you end up with that floating image.  So all
you need to do is change the resolution you're displaying at.

To change the resolution of the console, try adding vga=ask to the
bootprompt.  The kernel will let you pick from a list of available
modes, and you'll hopefully find one to suit the screen - see
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Framebuffer-HOWTO-5.html#ss5.2 (and 5.3) for
details.

For X, it'll simply be a case of picking the correct resolution when you
get that far .. unless this is already the issue, in which case I need
to sleep more :o)  X and the console control their resolutions
indepentantly, so a small console shouldn't be a show-stopper, just
persevere and get X set right.

HTH,
  Shaun