Beautiful! I can SEE!
Today, I set out to figure out how to make X Windows deliver a higher resolution, so I can take advantage of my nice 19" LCD monitor.
I started off by downloaded the latest version of XFree86 which can be downloaded from The XFree86 Project site. The most up to date stable version is 4.6.0 and that's what I downloaded. I followed the instructions, checking there was a suitable version available, backing things up myself, etc. and everything seemed to go relatively smoothly.
The configuration wasn't so easy for me for some reason. It wasn't all horrible or anything but the wizards just weren't helping to make the difference I was looking for. Things were all fuzzy at X-Windows startup but would sort of re-adjust. This first good thing I noticed is that it was dispaying things at my monitor's maximum resolution of 1280x1024. But it was doing so off-centre, as well as that fuzzy issue at startup and the occasional weird blip. This just would not do.
I looked around online a bit and ended up downloading the NVIDIA driver for my particular video card. I had already been messing around in the XFreeConfig file (which I learned is eerily similar to the xorg.conf file that I used to edit, but learned that only one or the other gets used by the X-server. With this new XFree install, all the edits had to be made to the XFreeConfig file instead *sigh*) and had already adjusted my monitor's horizontal and vertical sync rates as listed in the manual. And after downloading and installing the NVIDIA driver -- which went smoothly -- the configuration stuff -- once again -- didn't really work for me..... actually I think it altered the wrong config file which really does not make things work. So I ended up manually editing the XFreeConfig file again... but I had some help in this one.
One little hitch that might be specifically worthwhile mentioning, in editing the XFreeConfig file to use the NVIDIA driver (instead of a generic or open source version) I made the -- possibly pointless -- decision to change the identifier of the driver, since it wasn't generic anymore. I quickly learned that the graphics device identifier is referenced later on in the file under the Screen section, so I made it all confused when I made that change. The fix was easy though, I just had to change the identifier in the Screen section of the file as well. (Or could have just left all the identifiers alone and not been so picky!)
Once I fired X-Windows up again, everything seems great!! :) No fuzzy startup. Still the good resolution. No weird flickering. Everything is back on centre. I'll take it. It's beautiful.
And it's interesting to note that the NVIDIA driver will support 2D and 3D stuff... not that I'll mess with that too much, but it just sounds cool. :)
I started off by downloaded the latest version of XFree86 which can be downloaded from The XFree86 Project site. The most up to date stable version is 4.6.0 and that's what I downloaded. I followed the instructions, checking there was a suitable version available, backing things up myself, etc. and everything seemed to go relatively smoothly.
The configuration wasn't so easy for me for some reason. It wasn't all horrible or anything but the wizards just weren't helping to make the difference I was looking for. Things were all fuzzy at X-Windows startup but would sort of re-adjust. This first good thing I noticed is that it was dispaying things at my monitor's maximum resolution of 1280x1024. But it was doing so off-centre, as well as that fuzzy issue at startup and the occasional weird blip. This just would not do.
I looked around online a bit and ended up downloading the NVIDIA driver for my particular video card. I had already been messing around in the XFreeConfig file (which I learned is eerily similar to the xorg.conf file that I used to edit, but learned that only one or the other gets used by the X-server. With this new XFree install, all the edits had to be made to the XFreeConfig file instead *sigh*) and had already adjusted my monitor's horizontal and vertical sync rates as listed in the manual. And after downloading and installing the NVIDIA driver -- which went smoothly -- the configuration stuff -- once again -- didn't really work for me..... actually I think it altered the wrong config file which really does not make things work. So I ended up manually editing the XFreeConfig file again... but I had some help in this one.
One little hitch that might be specifically worthwhile mentioning, in editing the XFreeConfig file to use the NVIDIA driver (instead of a generic or open source version) I made the -- possibly pointless -- decision to change the identifier of the driver, since it wasn't generic anymore. I quickly learned that the graphics device identifier is referenced later on in the file under the Screen section, so I made it all confused when I made that change. The fix was easy though, I just had to change the identifier in the Screen section of the file as well. (Or could have just left all the identifiers alone and not been so picky!)
Once I fired X-Windows up again, everything seems great!! :) No fuzzy startup. Still the good resolution. No weird flickering. Everything is back on centre. I'll take it. It's beautiful.
And it's interesting to note that the NVIDIA driver will support 2D and 3D stuff... not that I'll mess with that too much, but it just sounds cool. :)
Labels: driver, linux, NVIDIA, screen resolution, Slackware, X Windows, XFree
posted by olivepeople at 5:24 PM
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