Widescreen problem

[barryg]

Hi. I have a 22" widescreen lcd monitor but am unable to use 1680x1050 resolution. I'm using Knoppix v5.1.1 live cd, and have used the 'cheatcodes':

Knoppix screen=1680x1050 depth 24
Knoppix xvrefresh=60

When the installation is complete, i have a resolution of 1400x1050, but the wallpaper acts like a window, meaning i can move the mouse up/down/left and right, and the screen will scroll to it's resolution extremes behind the wallpaper.

I have tried adjusting the wallpaper and even just use a blank background, but still i can only see the desktop that shows withing the wallpaper window. Despite using a 1680X1050 cheatcode i cannot acheive that resolution. If i reduce the resolution to 1152x864, the screen matches the wallpaper window but maintains a 4:3 resolution.

I have an ATI X1950 video card and would like to try Knoppix, but only if i can get the widescreen resolution. Any help would be grateful.

Regards Barryg

[oz]

Welcome to the forums, barryg!

Just curious... have you tried reducing the depth to 16 to see if that helps?

[barryg]

Yes but still no joy

When the install is booting up with the list of processes it is going through, it does say that it is using modes 1680*1050..etc, but when the desktop is loaded it remains at 1400*1050.

Checking the desktop config screen does not show 1680*1050 in the list, 1400*1050 is the largest?

Regards Barryg

[oz]

I'm not sure that it will be possible to get the resolution you want without actually installing the official ATI drivers, or are they installed in Knoppix by default?

If you can, paste your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file here and maybe someone can see something that can be changed so that you get the desired resolution.

[barryg]

I tried installing various versions of ATI drivers, but all i got was either a garbled display, or 1400*1050 as the highest resolution. I also tried opensuse, kubuntu, debian 4.0 and they all do the same.

During installation my LCD monitor is correctly configured by the distro's, and even though they all correctly name my video card as an ATI card, they all say 'unknown device' and all default the display to Vesa.

Despite installing ATI drivers i cannot achieve a 1680*1050 widescreen display and it's a bit silly having a widescreen display but only have a 4:3 aspect. Either my ATI X1950 card is just not ready for Linux, or perhaps it's the otherway round. I have noted several solutions to other graphics chips (notebooks), and nVidia cards in general, but none successfully using an X1950 card.

Regards Barryg