"letterboxed" Slack 10 display on my laptop

[belsonc]

Well, I decided to install Slack 10 on my old Sony laptop - p3/750, 15gb, either 128 or 256 ram, I don't remember off the top of my head - and the installation went without a hitch. The only problem is that, when I boot, the display seems to be "letterboxed" - instead of it displaying across the entire 15" display, it only shows on a rectangle about 6x8 or so - I'm not sure of the exact dimensions, but now you have an idea of what happens. When I was at work today, I realized that when I boot, it says something about passing an unrecognized display (something) and asks me to choose from a list - I just hit return, and it keeps booting. Me being the mental giant I am, it took me until this afternoon to realize that the two might be connected - could they? And if not, how do I go about fixing this? It's nice to have a relatively recent computer I can teach myself about Linux on with an up-to-date distro - as opposed to the desktop that will only, for some unknown reason, install rh8 - but the display area is so small that I can't even see some windows completely... and some I can only see completely if I hide the taskbar... any suggestions?

-CB

[Rinias]

That's a good one... Heh heh.

Well, I don't have much experience, but I found that with the little I did have, it was all because of the wrong driver/module that I was using for the display.

When I changed that, everything worked out well.

I'd say give us some info on the hardware, and we'll try to match you up on the X driver side.

[belsonc]

Well, it's a PCG-FX200K, and when I was going through installing either Mandrake or Slackware - I have a really, INCREDIBLY bad memory for details like this - I do remember that I had to have it autodetect the video information, and it found an Intel 815 chipset - outside of that, what kind of information would be helpful?

-CB

[tmcG]

I had the same trouble with my HP notebook and Slack 9.1.

I found the easiest and quickest way to fix it was to choose the correct monitor using a KDE applet.

Do you have KDE installed?

If so, I think (from memory, so I could be wrong!) there is an option under the K menu that is System setup or something like that and a sub menu is Display.

You can then use the GUI X configurator (is that a word?:) :confused: ) to choose your generic 15" LCD screen.

Save that and it works well!

I am sorry for the vague description but if it doesn't work, please post back!

Let us know how you go!:)

[belsonc]

I can't seem to find what you're talking about - I found a display window, but the only size option I have is 640x480... is this something I might've missed during installation?

-CB

[Uranus]

Originally posted by belsonc
[B]The only problem is that, when I boot, the display seems to be "letterboxed" - instead of it displaying across the entire 15" display, it only shows on a rectangle about 6x8 or so - I'm not sure of the exact dimensions, but now you have an idea of what happens. When I was at work today, I realized that when I boot, it says something about passing an unrecognized display (something) and asks me to choose from a list - I just hit return, and it keeps booting./B]
I don't think that these things have to do with each other - it's probably grub wanting you to pass a legal vga-mode number, this only has effect for the console.
I think the problem is in KDE - I had this as well on my brother's comp (using SMGL) and didn't have it any longer when I installed Gentoo :) Can't really help you with that I think. Try starting X in a different WM - preferably something simple like openbox, fluxbox or the like and make sure that the Display section in you XF86Config or xorg.conf is correct (like the standard color depth is 24 and that one has 1024x768 or whatever you like in its line). Have a look if that WM has the right resolution.
Also try switching to the console (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and have a look if the screen is boxed there - I suspect it's not, if it is this post isn't probably of much use...
My guess is that KDE is just acting ****ty.
Sam

[Daedrus]

The problem is your resolution for X. Most laptop screens don't handle resolution the same way a CRT does. Most laptops need to run at 1024x768 in X otherwise you get your black border effect. If you don't have any other options than 640x480, then you probably have a problem with incorrect video drivers or just an incorrect xorg.conf setup. To rerun the X setup, run xorgconfig.

[rbrimhall]

And you should check here (http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/sony.html) to see if there is a preexisting X11 configuration someone has set up for your particular model that you can reference when changing yours...

[Uranus]

Originally posted by Daedrus
The problem is your resolution for X. Most laptop screens don't handle resolution the same way a CRT does. Most laptops need to run at 1024x768 in X otherwise you get your black border effect. If you don't have any other options than 640x480, then you probably have a problem with incorrect video drivers or just an incorrect xorg.conf setup. To rerun the X setup, run xorgconfig.
The xorg.conf file can be perfectly fine, the problem is that KDE can change resolutions by itself if I understood correctly when I had the problem. Even if you have 4 different display modes in the xorg.conf file, KDE can still have only 1 if it wants to.
KDE makes linux feel like windows - you have problems without a clue how to solve it, and I don't like that.
Sam

[belsonc]

Well, I haven't had any luck yet in getting it to work full-screen - so I'll try another distro (next up... Gentoo) and see if that fixes it... this is my old laptop, so since I got a new one to replace it, I can run this one into the ground with no regrets... :-)

-CB

[belsonc]

Well, Gentoo didn't work - although I seem to have gotten Arch Linux installed, but I can't get X running there... I have the same letterboxed effect on the screen here, too, and when I was playing around with Arch, I realized that not only did I have the letterboxed effect in X, I had it under the command prompt, too...

[leonpmu]

Perhaps you need to check your bios as well, to ensure that it will give you a full screen display, also one of your safest bets is to set up the screen as either an LCD, or VESA screen and go for a modest setting like 800x600 and work your way up!!

The intel 815 is supported, so I don't think that is the issue here, I think that it is your actual screen.

Later

[belsonc]

Well, I know I can get a full screen display under Linux - when this computer used to dual boot between w2kpro and RH8, I always got a full screen out of RH8. I don't get it with slack or arch, and I don't remember whether I had it or not under mandrake...