You'll get a performance advantage with the via driver. I'm gonna pop out and do a reconfig of X for practice then post some helpful info. In the meantime, do you have the WXGA (1280x768) or WSVGA (1024x600) display in that?
Edit: I rediscovered the greatest advantage to openchrome. A chrome 9's (VIA) screen doesn't scramble when switching between text and X like it does with the VESA driver.The chrome9 card's and display's info aren't read because VIA kept promising to open their interfaces and didn't. Disgusted, nobody has much interest in doing RE that'll mainly benefit VIA. The info needed from the company to get the info from the chips never arrived.
Took me long enough:
Note 0: I'm attaching the xorg.conf I got when I did these things (look for one of the paperclips near the bottom), but thought I should show how I got it. So you can skip this, but if you play along and it doesn't work for you, you'll know where I screwed up. I could only test this on my 1440x900. I did get it into 1280x768 in X, but your mileage may vary.
Note 1: You can do the following with your current, VESA, X running. Normally I'd say that's bad practice, but most chromes will scramble when they switch back to text when using VESA driver, and only reboot solves it; so stay in whichever mode you're already in.
So that you can use 1280x768 if you have it, be root and do "cp /sbin/vxconf /sbin/vxconf.orig". You should back up your "working" /etc/X11/xorg.conf, too. Just in case. Now edit /sbin/vxconf. Find this part . . .
"1440x900" "Another common widescreen format" \
"1600x1200" "You know if you have this one...nice!" \
"1024x600" "8.9\" widescreen format" \
"1000x600" "8.9\" Via widescreen format" \
. . . and add another line
"1440x900" "Another common widescreen format" \
"1600x1200" "You know if you have this one...nice!" \
"1024x600" "8.9\" widescreen format" \
"1280x768" "8.9\" high-res widescreen" \
"1000x600" "8.9\" Via widescreen format" \
A few lines below that you'll find these three lines:
if [ "$res" = "1280x1024" ]; then
finalres="Modes \"1280x1024\" \"1024x768\" \"800x600\" \"640x480\""
fi
Copy those three lines and edit one of the copies to get:
if [ "$res" = "1280x768" ]; then
finalres="Modes \"1280x768\" \"1024x768\" \"800x600\" \"640x480\""
fi
if [ "$res" = "1280x1024" ]; then
finalres="Modes \"1280x1024\" \"1024x768\" \"800x600\" \"640x480\""
fi
Save /etc/vxconf, and run "vxconf". Choose vxconf. A note here: no matter what, it's going to choose 16-bit depth when it sees "VIA". You can change it to 24 if your machine supports it. The 24-bit bug is gone with the current driver. I leave it at 16 because it matches some old emulators I use. I was using 24 for a couple of months with no problems.
I'm afraid we have to edit your fresh, new /etc/X11/xorg.conf by hand:
root:# cvt 1280 768 >> /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Don't forget it's
two ">>". Ouch. Now open /etc/X11/xorg.conf in your editor. Find the DPMS option and comment it out.
Section "Monitor"
# Option "DPMS"
Option "UseEdidFreqs" "1"
Doesn't work with most chromes using laptop panel, and prevents proper mode detection on them. After you've got X working with openchrome, you should try it uncommented just to see if you're lucky. While we're in the Monitor section, go to the last two lines in the file. You added them with "cvt", above. Move them to near here.
Section "Monitor"
# Option "DPMS"
Option "UseEdidFreqs" "1"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Monitor Model"
HorizSync 31.5-64
VertRefresh 40-90
# 1280x768 59.87 Hz (CVT) hsync: 47.78 kHz; pclk: 79.50 MHz
Modeline "1280x768_60.00" 79.50 1280 1344 1472 1664 768 771 781 798 -hsync +vsync
EndSection
Since VIA's not providing appropriate info, we have to spell it out. Now to the device section.
#Option "DefaultRefresh" # [<bool>]
#Option "ModeSetClearScreen" # [<bool>]
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "vesa"
VendorName "Unknown Vendor"
BoardName "Unknown Board"
Change "vesa" to "openchrome" and add four new options:
#Option "DefaultRefresh" # [<bool>]
#Option "ModeSetClearScreen" # [<bool>]
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "openchrome"
Option "VBEModes" "True"
Option "PanelSize" "1280x768"
Option "SWCursor" "True"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "True"
VendorName "Unknown Vendor"
BoardName "Unknown Board"
VBEModes is the only semi-reliable way this setup can be modeswitched until there's more chip info available.
PanelSize may no longer be necessary, but besides giving the size, it alerts xorg that the panel is being used and not the vga out. If you use PanelSize,
remember to use the right one if it's not 1280x768. Openchrome couldn't detect it before, may be fixed now.
SWCursor keeps your cursor from disappearing in certain situations.
XAANoOffscreenPixmaps solves a sometimes-scrambled-screen problem present in this and other drivers.
It's been suggested that the following lines near the bottom should be commented out with this driver:
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
They're
not commented out in the attached xorg.conf. They
are commented out in my own xorg.conf. Both seem to work, but IIRC, I haven't gotten DRI working either way. Have to check /var/log/Xorg.0.log.
I think I remembered all the changes. If I didn't, the completed /etc/X11/xorg.conf is at the bottom. Paperclip.
While we're at screen resolution and paperclips, would you like the logo to be round on your bootsplash picture? If you have that 1280x768, there's a fix ready for you.
Shameless plug and cross-post to a mis-named thread:http://forum.vectorlinux.com/index.php?topic=11752.msg74579#msg74579For the installation files, see the paperclip at bottom, widesplash.zip.
If you have that 1024x600, you'll have to resize the 1280x768 and edit the .cfg. Those with higher resolutions can get proper aspect (round logo) with one of these if the ones in the distro don't do it. Framebuffer res and X res are two different things. The very picky can resize and edit cfg since aspect is correct. I'm still hoping someone will like the .cfgs, but dislike the images and provide better ones.
We'd all like to know how X config goes for you in the end. As for me, good to have another
masochist via user around.
welcome, and enjoy