Re: laptop display
Mark Grieveson <dg135@torfree.net> wrote:
> Hello. I just installed Debian Etch on an old laptop (IBM Thinkpad
> 770). It works okay, but the image is half the screen size. It's a
> centred box within the larger screen. How do I make it full size? I
> tried "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg", thinking that changing the
> resolution might help, but, it did not help.
> I suspect it's something to do with the laptop. This is the first
> laptop I've ever had. All suggestions are appreciated.
>
> Mark
LCDs are different than CRT displays. Because the number of pixels on a
LCD is fixed, every LCD has a "native" resolution which is AFAIKK its
highest.
I have a laptop with a 1024x768 native resolution. If I want to use a
smaller resolution (say 800x600) I have two options (usually set in the
BIOS):
1. Use only 800x600 pixels of the 1024x768. This will make the image
smaller, with a black border around it (the unused pixels), but it will
have the same clarity.
2. Expand the 800x600 pixel over all 1024x768 pixels. This will make
the image fill the screen, but it will be blurry, because it is
difficult to represent the 800x600 pixels using 1024x768
IMHO it is always best to use the native resolution. The image is much
clearer and in Linux there are several ways to improve the readability
(increase font size, tinker with dpi, ...)
Now to your situation: you should find out your display's native
resolution, then try to set it using "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg".
Did you do any changes "by hand" to xorg.conf? If yes, then you need to
read the notes in the file itself very carefull and also search the
archives of this list, as it seems the instructions contained there do
not work 100%.
HTH,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)
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