On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 10:57:32AM -0500, Bruce Dubbs wrote:
> Richard Melville wrote:
> >I've just configured my latest kernel (4.0.3) to utilise KMS (thanks Ken)
> >rather than the legacy vesafb, but of course this has created other
> >problems.
> >
> >The upside is that the font size on the console looks good on my monitor
> >(1440x900) and the backlight now switches itself off when required -- it
> >must have been broken on vesafb.
> >
> >The downside is that the EDID information fed to the kernel appears to give
> >the wrong screen size.  Only about 60% of the width and height are used.
> >
> >Maybe there's something I've missed in the kernel config.  I've now turned
> >off all legacy frame buffer settings that I can find, but it's made no
> >difference.
> >
> >My feeling is that the monitor EDID info is corrupt; it's a cheap and
> >fairly old model of unknown origin.  If this is the case then I need to
> >build an EDID file and place it in /lib/firmware.  But first I have to
> >discover exactly what the setting are for my monitor.
> >
> >My questions are: has anybody successfully built a custom EDID file, and
> >what is the best way to query the monitor for the settings?  Normally I
> >would use xrandr, but I don't have xorg (with its libraries) installed, and
> >I don't need it.  Can xrandr be installed standalone?  I've found a couple
> >of other tools on the web (read-edid and edid-rw) but I'm unfamiliar with
> >them.
> >
> >Any help much appreciated, otherwise I'll plough on alone :-(
> 
> I've never had to do anything like that, but my first step would be to try a
> commercial distro and see if the same problem persists.  I'd also take a
> look at the Xorg log.
> 
>   -- Bruce
> 
Those sound like good places to start - remember to backup grub.cfg
so you can restore it after the distro is installed.

There seem to be *two* EDID config options which mention FIRMWARE in
the kernel, but I'm not sure which I use (my server uses one, but
not sure about my desktops), and if it really is corrupt then I
doubt changing the config will help.

There is a read-edid or parse-edid tool (lots of references if you
google 'linux EDID'), but it seems to be used to get the right data
from a working example of the same monitor.  I did find a post which
mentioned setting custom modelines : I guess using xrandr would be
the least painful way to try that (and ctrl-alt-backspace if it goes
bad : hope it doesn't trash the monitor).

I also found an oldish post mentioning setting up a conf file for
the monitor with options including

Option "UseEDID" "FALSE"
and also Horizsync and Vertrefresh ranges

but I'm not sure if it worked.

ĸen
-- 
Nanny Ogg usually went to bed early. After all, she was an old lady.
Sometimes she went to bed as early as 6 a.m.
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