Question about LCD screens

[BarryK]

Guys,
What native screen resolutions do most laptops come with these days?
Also, for desktop LCD panels, are they mostly 1024x768 native size?

Puppy2 is booting up with the kernel vesa framebuffer turned on, currently using boot parameter "vga=788", which is 800x600x16.

For anyone who's puzzled:
This is the initial video mode, no connection with X. It means that you get more lines of text, more chars per line, and a nice boot logo, prior to starting X.

But, I'm wondering how 800x600 will look on most LCD panels. apart from the logo, it's all text -- but does the text look jagged?
Anyone with a LCD panel, and is able to boot a distro and enter "vga=788" as a boot parameter, kindly let me know that it looks okay or not.

Note, I chose 800x600x16 (65,536 colors), as that should work on any old cathode ray tube monitor. But, any LCD monitors less than 800x600?

[JohnMurga]

All shapes and sizes ...

At home I have a 1024x768 LCD, at work two 1280x1024 side by side... My Ferrari laptop has a 1400 x 1050 LCD and the TV in the living room (LCD rigged up to PC) is 1366 x 768.

My sisters Toshiba is 1280 x 800 I think.

The most common would be 1024x768 (specially in laptops), although 1280x800 is becoming very popular with some laptops.

Cheers
JohnM

[Guest]

I used 107's Install Puppy USB drive wizard to make a bootable USB drive then modified syslinux.cfg like this:

• default vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 initrd=image.gz
  append PSLEEP=25 PHOME=sda1 PFILE=pup100-none-262144 PKEYS=fi vga=788

Rebooted using the USB drive and got "You passed an undefined mode number".

I agree with John, 1024x768 is the most common laptop panel size and the "widescreen" panel (1280x800 ?) seems to be gaining fast.

Don't know of any LCD panels smaller than 800x600.

Paul

[BarryK]

I used 107's Install Puppy USB drive wizard to make a bootable USB drive then modified syslinux.cfg like this:

• default vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 initrd=image.gz
  append PSLEEP=25 PHOME=sda1 PFILE=pup100-none-262144 PKEYS=fi vga=788

Rebooted using the USB drive and got "You passed an undefined mode number".

I agree with John, 1024x768 is the most common laptop panel size and the "widescreen" panel (1280x800 ?) seems to be gaining fast.

Don't know of any LCD panels smaller than 800x600.

Paul

That's a problem then. vga=791 is for 1024x768, but what will that look like on a 800x600 lcd panel, it might not even work. In other words, the opposite problem.
I'm surprised at your problem though, if you have a lcd panel greated than 800x600, I would have thought it would work at lower resolutions -- and "788" is a standard vesa number.

[Guest]

Me old Dell looks crap on anything but 1024x768.

[Ted Dog]

Me old Dell looks crap on anything but 1024x768.

Same with my compaq laptop.

800x600 mode (used by GeexBox) does scary green shreading effect

[Nano]

I used 107's Install Puppy USB drive wizard to make a bootable USB drive then modified syslinux.cfg like this:

• default vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 initrd=image.gz
  append PSLEEP=25 PHOME=sda1 PFILE=pup100-none-262144 PKEYS=fi vga=788

Rebooted using the USB drive and got "You passed an undefined mode number".

I agree with John, 1024x768 is the most common laptop panel size and the "widescreen" panel (1280x800 ?) seems to be gaining fast.

Don't know of any LCD panels smaller than 800x600.

Paul

I get the same error message with DSL and Knoppix 4.02. I dont think this problem is related with an LCD-Display but rather with onboard video graphics.
I have an IBM Netvista 6568 with onboard i815 Solana graphics card connected to a noname 15" LCD-Display.
Sorry that i didnt test it with puppy. But i have the system just like i want it now .
Maybe i can test it in a few days.

CU
Nano

[BarryK-not-logged-in]

onboard i815 Solana graphics card

Intel i81x again....

I would like to find a mode that is less than 1024x768, and works on all video hardware. I'll even go down to 640x480.
The thing is, have to start with a mode that will work on everything, including older 800x600 LCD panels.

Here are some modes that I found by googling:

# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
vga = 791
# Normal VGA console
# vga = normal
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
# vga=791
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
# vga=790
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
# vga=773
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
# vga=788
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
# vga=787
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
# vga=771
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
# vga=785
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
# vga=784
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
# vga=769

What about 771, which is 800x600x8?
...that should be supported!

[pakt]

What about 771, which is 800x600x8?
...that should be supported!

Bingo! 771 works on my Intel 855 (i810) laptop - got the penguin in the upper left corner and dmesg reports:

• vesafb: framebuffer at 0xf0000000, mapped to 0xe0821000, size 832k
  vesafb: mode is 800x600x8, linelength=800, pages=0
  vesafb: protected mode interface info at a5f3:1f5f
  vesafb: scrolling: redraw
  Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 100x37
  fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device

Paul (that was me not-logged-in earlier)

[pakt]

Used WakePup to boot the same USB drive in my old ThinkPad 240 (neomagic chipset) with a 800x600 LCD panel.
Tried several modes but they were ignored by the laptop. Here is a dmesg excerpt:

• Kernel command line: root=/dev/ram0 acpi=off vga=771 PSLEEP=25 PHOME=sda1 PFILE=PUP100-none-262144
  Console: colour VGA+ 80x25

and no penguin in the upper left corner.

Paul

[BarryK]

The 2.4.29 kernel used in Pup 1.0.6 has the vesa framebuffer driver built-in. I googled around, and kept coming up with reports of difficulty with the vesa f.b. driver and the i810 video.
...so, it's good that you have found a mode that works.

Regarding the laptop that doesn't work, at least it ignores the vga= parameter and doesn't crash!
...all you really miss out on is the nice logo! ..well, the extra lines and chars/line is nice too.

Now, we need more people to try vga=771
..any distro, Knoppix is fine, as I think it also has the vesa f.b. driver in the kernel.
I would also like to know about:
785 640x480x16
769 640x480x8

[gnomen]

I run Puppy 107 with bombayrockers Kernel 2.4.29-lck on a Via Eden box with Apollo graphics. Native resolution on the LCD screen is 1280x1024

The vga-modes that work here are 769, 771, 773 and 755

The modes 784, 785, 787, 788, 790, 791 lead to kernel panic while copying usr_cram

[pakt]

I would also like to know about:
785 640x480x16
769 640x480x8

Yes, these also work on my Intel 855 (i810) laptop.

Paul

[Flash]

I'd like to help but I don't have a clue how to do it. I've booted the Puppy 107 CD with option 4 but I don't see any way to try these video options that way. I let Puppy 107 create a pup file in an ext3 partition on my hard drive. Is there something I can do there?

[gnomen]

I'd like to help but I don't have a clue how to do it.

for booting from a live-cd pass this at the boot-promt instead of choosing a boot option

Code: Select all

vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 initrd=image.gz vga=771

or something like that. you can change the vga parameter to whatever you want to test. I haven't tried it as I don't use the live-cd, but a flashpuppy. I just press the Shift-key while booting to get to the syslinux-promt and type in the above parameters

[Lobster]

Guys,
Also, for desktop LCD panels, are they mostly 1024x768 native size?

Yes that is normal res for 15 " - I have 17" and use 1024x1280
my Brother in Law has 19" but that is not all that common

Most new machines are coming with 17" LCD and that should support 1024x1280, though some people run in the lower res

I usually run in 16 million colours - The human eye can not differentiate 32 million colours as far as I know (or is that a myth?)

[Flash]

... for booting from a live-cd pass this at the boot-prompt instead of choosing a boot option

Code: Select all

vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 initrd=image.gz vga=771

or something like that. you can change the vga parameter to whatever you want to test. ..

Thanks. I didn't realize that was a regular boot prompt where you could enter something besides the numbers provided.

When I entered what you wrote I got this:

...You passed an undefined mode number. Enter RETURN to see video modes available...

So I hit RETURN and got this:

Video adapter: VESA VGA

Mode: cols x rows
0 0F00 80 x 25
1 0F01 80 x 50
2 0F02 80 x 43
3 0F03 80 x 28
4 0F05 80 x 30
5 0F06 80 x 34
6 0F07 80 x 60

I chose 1 (80 x 50) and now I know I prefer bigger text than that for the boot messages. At 80 x 50 it's almost impossible for me to read text that small that's going by so fast. So I rebooted several more times and tried 5 (80 x 34) and 4 (80 x 30). There really wasn't much noticeable difference but I preferred 80 x 30.

[Guest]

If the native resolution is 1600x1200 the 800x600 will look just fine due to geometric scaling.

Bottom line is you won't be able to please everyone. LCDs are always going to be an issue.

[M.Gregg]

Hi,
Please do not remove xvesa, I have found that with wide screen on laptops, that even ubuntu will not configure it correctly giving a split in the screen. Also on qemu xvesa is more usable. xorgworks but is touchy. Wide screen is the most popular now in the U.K. on laptops (new equipment).

Regards
Michael

[dvw86]

I have a 17" (1440 X 900) Dell laptop and xorg works well in it once you get it configured. I had to lie to it a little about the ratio though.