Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2012 16:31:20 -0800 From: Gary Kline <kline@thought.org> To: Matthew Seaman <matthew@FreeBSD.org> Cc: FreeBSD Mailing List <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: question about my new Dell 3010 Message-ID: <20121210003120.GE30396@ethic.thought.org> In-Reply-To: <50C44DEE.6040601@FreeBSD.org> References: <20121209002330.GA8528@ethic.thought.org> <50C44DEE.6040601@FreeBSD.org>
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On Sun, Dec 09, 2012 at 08:38:06AM +0000, Matthew Seaman wrote: > On 09/12/2012 00:23, Gary Kline wrote: > > > one of the remaining problems --hopefuully the Last-- with my > > Dell 3010 quad i5 is that the resolution stops at 5:4. it's > > something like 1280x1014 whereas my widescreen Dell needs > > 1920x1280 or close to that. do I need to go out and find a > > videocard? or is there a way of taking my 6GB of RAM and giving > > it to the video? > > Do you have a DVI connector on your current graphics card, or just the > old style VGA connector? Pretty much all modern widescreen monitors > will have a DVI connector as well as the legacy VGA. actually, I have both. the KVM dates from 2010 and came with four cables and eight plugs. > If you don't know what those are, see this page: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DVI_Connector_Types.svg > > Most DVI monitor cables have a DVI-D dual link plug on them, but > anything matching those patterns is proof positive of DVI. > > VGA connectors looks like this: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vga-cable.jpg > > Anyhow, the point is if you're using a DVI connector, X will be able to > query the monitor and find out its preferred resolution etc. > automatically. Whereas with a VGA connector, it will default to using > one of the standard VGA series of resolutions. All monitors will > support some sort of VGA resolution for backwards compatibility -- > typically 1024x768@60Hz -- and many will support higher, but all of the > VGA series resolutions are 4:3 aspect ratio which doesn't look very nice > on a widescreen monitor. > > There's two ways to fix the problem. > > 1) Get a video card with a DVI connector, or at least a DVI-to-DVI > monitor cable if your card already has that. Apart from the > hassle of getting a new video card that will work happily with X, > this should be pretty painfree. > > 2) Edit your Xorg.conf to add a custom mode that matches what your > monitor expects. Back in the days of CRTs this was a potentially > risky thing to do, as configuring the video mode wrongly could > phsically damage your monitor. Modern flatscreens however will > just put up a message saying the input is incompatible. > > Working out what the right parameters are to put in the mode definition > is the tricky bit. You may be able to use xrandr to pull them out (but > if xrandr could do it, then X would do it automatically too...) There > should be documentation that comes with the monitor, or you may find a > kind soul online with the same make and model of monitor who will send > you some xrandr output. here's the Whole story. last summer I dedided to switch to all linux`in order to make upgrades simple[r]. since my brother engineer [a retired ME] was too ill to help i hired a technician. my "old-tao" (a homebrew AMD quad-CPU) had a broken USB. this was how I realized that the USB was broken. with a new KVM the home-brew still failed. I could ssh to<-> from, but not watch it boot. So I finally decided it was time to buys another Dell, new. somebody gave me a used Dell dual. my server is a new dual from '09. used and refurb'd and home-brew is not the optimal way. so my tech said he would look for the best Dell quad he could find, and after 6 weeeks he brought over the 3010. [fact: this chap is self-taught. but he got me a new kvm and blindly pluged things together.]] whether the 3010 has ye-olden VGA jack =plus= the DVI, I dont know. my guess is that the technician knows the diff. nutshell, looks like whatever ghaphic chipset the computer had maxes out a 5:4 screen-size ratio. I =will= try adding the mode line info. thanks, gary > Cheers, > > Matthew > > -- > Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. > PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey > > -- Gary Kline kline@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix Twenty-six years of service to the Unix community.
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