On Thu January 3 2008, Felix Miata scratched these words onto a coconut shell, hoping for an answer:
> Modern desktop environments are designed to prefer a display DPI of > 96, or something as close thereto as practical. The lower the DPI, > the more granular desktop objects look. IOW, the higher the DPI, the > higher the apparent quality. In the case of your 20" nominal, 19" > actual CRT display, the closest you can come to 96 is by specifying > use of a display resolution of 1400X1050 (SXGA+), which is about 92.1 > DPI on your display. The 80 and lower DPI values we have seen in your > Xorg.0.log means your Desktop quality running 1152x864 is suboptimal, > and 1024x768 even worse. > > If you find yourself running sax2 interactively (e.g. running sax2 > with no command line options), take the opportunity to select > 1400x1050. If not, this can be dealt with after getting rectangular > rectangles. Using 1400x1050 on your display will mean the image > that's supposed to be 1" wide will be as close to actually being 1" > wide as possible given your actual physical display size. Hi again, Felix. I ran Sax2 from the Yast Control Center, reset the screen size to 20" per Aaron Kulkis's suggestion, and reset the resolution to your suggested 1400X1050. Result: the image that is supposed to be 1" wide was 1." However, as you probably suspected given that the problem seems to run deep, the other results were not as positive. Here is what I got from the command line: 86X64 DPI 1368X768 pixels 406X305 m.m. Unfortunately, the downside of getting a proper 1" image with this higher resolution was that my squished rectangles were made even worse -- much worse in fact. So I put the resolution back to 1152x864. Far from ideal, but easier on the eyes than 1400X1050. > "sax2 -r -m 0=i810" is not my instrucion, and not Jan's instruction, > but SUSE's instruction. You just need to do it if you want progress > getting 10.3 working on your i845G. Just don't try it from X. Do it > from a virtual console. Thanks for the pointers on running virtual consoles. I will try to get to this tomorrow and let you know what I find. (Please note my question to you on this at the end of the post.) I did want to report to you on the results of my discussions today with e-Machines. In one of your earlier posts you had suggested that updating the BIOS was something I should look into. I conversed with two tech support folks at e-Machines (now apparently owned by Gateway). I told them I was using Linux (SuSE 10.3) on one of their T2842 desktops, explained my video problem, stated that I had been informed by some wise Linux folks that there was an underlying problem with the intel driver and 10.3, and stated that I had been advised to see about updating the BIOS. Here are some comments extracted from the chat logs: Mike_GWER2383 says: eMachines does not support BIOS upgrades, unless available from our web site. Mike_GWER2383 says: To check for the availability click at the link below. http://www.emachines.com/support/product_support.html Mike_GWER2383 says: The instructions is included in the downloads. Gil Weber says: What if there is no BIOS upgrade available on the website? Am I out of luck? Mike_GWER2383 says: If the update is not available, then we don't have any more information on bios upgrades. Mike_GWER2383 says: The motherboard will be damaged if the bios update is not properly installed. Gil Weber says: When I go to the link you supplied do I look for something that says BIOS upgrade for T2842? What specifically do I look for so that I get the correct update? Mike_GWER2383 says: There are no updated drivers for your video card. Mike_GWER2383 says: Also, we don't have available drivers for Linux. Mike_GWER2383 says: Only Windows. Mike_GWER2383 says: Please reinstall the original operating system. Note to SuSE-list: "Please reinstall the original operating system." Now that was not what I was hoping to hear. Following this conversation I went to the URL I was given by "Mike" and found that there was nothing there except a very brief description of the computer's basic features. Certainly no links for downloading any updates of any kind. So I went back on line and connected to a different tech support person. I explained my situation again and stated that the URL I had been given had absolutely nothing on upgrading my computer. Here are excerpts from the second conversation: Steven_GWER5710 says: I understand that you where told to download a BIOS update but you did not see any BIOS upgrade in our website, is that correct? Gil Weber says: Yes. There is NOTHING at the link I was told to view other than a brief technical description. Gil Weber says: I was told that e-Machines does not support any BIOS upgrades unless they are on the site. I went to the URL where the upgrades are supposed to be and found nothing. Gil Weber says: Here is the full URL: http://emachines.com/support/product_support.html?cat=Desktops&subcat=T-Series&model=T2842# Steven_GWER5710 says: Please be informed that changing the original software/hardware that came with the system is a third party issue and already beyond our scope. And also we do not recommend upgrading the BIOS because of the problem that might happen like the computer may not boot at all. Gil Weber says: I understand. But surely there have been BIOS upgrades for this motherboard? Steven_GWER5710 says: And also we do not recommend upgrading the BIOS if it is not needed and if there's no BIOS upgrade in our website, it means that there's no BIOS upgrade for the system and it is not needed by the computer. Gil Weber says: So please confirm that I am looking in the right place. If I am in the right place and there are no links, does this mean that there are absolutely NO downloads available to upgrade anything on this computer? Steven_GWER5710 says: There's no available download for the BIOS upgrade for the computer. And we do not have information about other website for download. Note to SuSE-list: So I tried my best but got nothing helpful from e-Machines. If the BIOS is updateable I'll have to find the new BIOS somewhere else. Any suggestions on how I start? I guess the first thing I need to determine is the manufacturer and model of the motherboard. Is there a command line entry or GUI screen that will get me this info? > As to switching from the intel driver to the i810 driver, it is > technically as simple as substituting one string for the other on the > Driver line in xorg.conf. The problem is that due to the combination > of your (somewhat old) i845G chip and the bugs in the various X > components and in the drivers themselves, other things in xorg.conf > probably also need to be changed for best results. That's one reason > why the use of sax2 rather than direct editing of xorg.conf. Question: at this point without an updated BIOS do you suggest I again try "sax2 -r -m 0=i810" ? It is certainly possible that I somehow screwed things up the first time and caused the crashed video. If I do this again is it best to do it from a virtual console rather than from the GUI Sax2? Please remember this important point: Sax2 did work properly when I had SuSE 9.3 on this pooter, but it NEVER worked properly with 10.0 and it does not work properly with 10.3. Specifically, when I click on the "test" button to test the changed configuration (resolution) the countdown timer in the upper left hand corner does not work. Neither do ANY of the buttons to change the screen display dimensions (wider, narrower, taller, shorter, etc.). So is there something fundamentally wrong between Sax2 and my motherboard that is going to prevent me from getting this video problem fixed? Am I just spinning my wheels and wasting your guys' time? I know that may be impossible to answer without trying, but what's your best guess? In regards to this video problem am I just screwed using 10.3 and this motherboard and on-board video chip? Thanks. :o) Gil -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
