msevior ([info]msevior) wrote,
@ 2006-04-27 05:21:00
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Presentations with IBM T43 and Fedora Core 5
Getting my IBM T43 to give presentations actually took a bit of manual configuration of the xorg.conf file automatically generated by Fedora Core 5. The T43 has a screen resolution of 1400x1050 which is a bit wider than the aspect ratios found in almost all data projectors. Consequently without the following tweaks, the edges of my presentations were cut off.

After installing the proprietry ATI drivers from the http://rpm.livna.org/ web page I editted the device and screen sections of the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. I got this information after a google search. Unfortunately I can no longer find the webpage that give me the clues to get this right so I'm blogging this to add to the general correctness of the web :-)

The key to all this is the "clone" paramter in the device section of the file. This literally makes a clone of your laptop display so what you see is what your audience gets. (WYSIWYAG) Which Is Normally What Is Wanted :-)

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "fglrx"
VendorName "Videocard vendor"
BoardName "ATI Technologies Inc M22 [Radeon Mobility M300]"
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "MonitorLayout" "LVDS,CRT"
Option "MergedFB" "true"
Option "DDCMode" "on"
Option "RenderAccel" "on"
Option "MetaModes" "1400×1050-1400×1050 1280×1024-1280×1024 1024×768-1024×768"
Option "CRT2Position" "Clone"
Option "CRT2HSync" "32.4-90.0"
Option "CRT2VRefresh" "60.0-100.0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1400x1050" "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection


Then when I make a presentation, I use randr to set the resolution to 1024x768.

There is one final trick to make it work. After pluging the external display into the laptop I have to logout and restart X.

If the lazyweb can tell me how to avoid this restart of X I'd be most appreciative :-)

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MergedFB with free radeon drivers
(Anonymous)
2006-04-27 04:19 am UTC (link)
I don't know about the non-free ati drivers, but on my notebook I use MergedFB to do the same thing. Something like this in your "Device" section:

Option "UseFBDev" "false"
Option "MergedFB" "true"
Option "CRT2Position" "Clone"

That is what I use for presentations. For dual head, I do something like this:

Option "UseFBDev" "false"
Option "MergedFB" "true"
Option "CRT2Position" "RightOf" # this means the external monitor is to the right of my notebook
Option "MergedNonRectangular" "true" # keeps smaller screen from scrolling if viewport is smaller because of a different aspect ratio.

This all works with dri. You can see the radeon(4) manual page for more info. Unfortunately, you still have to restart X to add the second monitor. Could you use Meta-modes to do this without restarting X?

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(Anonymous)
2006-04-27 06:05 am UTC (link)
The aspect ratio of 1400x1050 is 4:3, which is rather common on data projectors.

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(Anonymous)
2006-04-27 08:12 am UTC (link)
Martin, I am pretty sure there is currently no way to make it work without restarting X; AFAIK, the X video driver checks for the presence of the second display when it is loaded, and when it is not there, it automatically loads into single display mode. In general dualhead under X is real pain, and as a rule 'It Just Does Not Work' (TM), plus Gnome tends to crash when using some of the other modes than clone, such as the 'big desktop', so if you got it to a usable state, count your blessings, and do not complain about the occassional restart :) - tf

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(Anonymous)
2006-04-27 09:06 am UTC (link)
Congratulations on getting this to work. I wasn't able to "clone" the desktop on my T42p, so I ended up with a workaround: running the presentation in a 1024x768 VNC session which is visible on both displays. The advantage is that xrandr isn't necessary.

My "presentation" script is as follows:
#!/bin/sh
killall Xvnc
killall vncviewer
vncserver
vncviewer -shared -shared -passwd /home/jk/.vnc/passwd localhost:1 &

And my ~/.vnc/xstartup:

#!/bin/sh

export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:1
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xrdb -merge - <
[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<eof [...] #override\n\>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Congratulations on getting this to work. I wasn't able to "clone" the desktop on my T42p, so I ended up with a workaround: running the presentation in a 1024x768 VNC session which is visible on both displays. The advantage is that xrandr isn't necessary.

My "presentation" script is as follows:
#!/bin/sh
killall Xvnc
killall vncviewer
vncserver
vncviewer -shared -shared -passwd /home/jk/.vnc/passwd localhost:1 &

And my ~/.vnc/xstartup:

#!/bin/sh

export DISPLAY=127.0.0.1:1
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xrdb -merge - <<EOF
*desktop.translations: #override\n\
<Key>F12: ToggleFullScreen()
EOF
xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic &
x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
x-window-manager &
export DISPLAY=:0.1
/usr/bin/vncviewer -fullscreen -shared -passwd /home/jk/.vnc/passwd localhost:1 &


Jon Kåre

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[info]sfllaw
2006-04-27 02:06 pm UTC (link)
Try: Option "ForceMonitors" "LVDS,CRT1"

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(Reply from suspended user)
Automated Screen Detection
(Anonymous)
2006-04-27 03:03 pm UTC (link)
With all the work that has been put into blinging out X (which is freaking sweet, btw) I'm disappointed that we still need to fall back to editing configuration files in order to set up screens and resolution. Having X automatically detect the addition and removal of screens and their supported resolutions would make life so much easier when it comes to creating a multiscreen environment.

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got this working on dapper
(Anonymous)
2006-04-28 05:33 pm UTC (link)
While not FC5, I got something working on Dapper which may help with what you're doing. It keeps the vga-out port on all the time, so you dont have to restart X to enable it. I have no idea how this affects battery life.

http://help.nceas.ucsb.edu/index.php/Enable_vga_out_on_ATI_Thinkpads

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My fedora 5 can't activate add/remove hardware
(Anonymous)
2006-08-23 10:46 am UTC (link)
I just installed fedora 5 and it ca't activate the add/remove hardware for me to do a complete installation.
How can I go about that? I was also told that it is the most unstable fedora flavour of Linux

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