Debian 4.0 Video Problems on iBook G3

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10-04-2007
MisterHanz

Debian 4.0 Video Problems on iBook G3

I've installed Debian 4.0 onto an ibook G3 (dual usb) laptop and when it attempts to start Xserver and gnome, the screen is all chopped up and you can only see an inch of the actual desktop on the left side of the screen. I was able to do a 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' and get a 1024x768 resolution that was clear when I rebooted. However, the desktop runs off of the 12.1" screen and only the top left area of the desktop is visible.
PLEASE HELP ME FIGURE THIS OUT!
Or does anyone know a distro that will just outright work on this type of ibook?
10-31-2007
pcjjman

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterHanz

I've installed Debian 4.0 onto an ibook G3 (dual usb) laptop and when it attempts to start Xserver and gnome, the screen is all chopped up and you can only see an inch of the actual desktop on the left side of the screen. I was able to do a 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg' and get a 1024x768 resolution that was clear when I rebooted. However, the desktop runs off of the 12.1" screen and only the top left area of the desktop is visible.
PLEASE HELP ME FIGURE THIS OUT!
Or does anyone know a distro that will just outright work on this type of ibook?

Hanz,

While I haven't figured out how to fully fix the issue, I did find a workaround. Edit your xorg.conf file by entering as root:
nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Now you should see the xorg.conf file. Hit Control-W, enter Depth, hit Enter, and you should be at the default-depth line. Replace 24 with 8, hit Ctrl-X, Y to save, and try startx again. It should work, albeit at 8 bit (256) color. If I find a "true" fix I'll be sure to post it here as well.

Thanks,
pcjjman
10-31-2007
MisterHanz

Thanks for your reply.

I have actually installed xubuntu(ppc) since I last posted on this thread, hoping that it would fix these display annoyances. I was able to get the desktop to a 800x640 resolution with a 16bit color depth. While this isn't the 1024x768 I would prefer, I'll just have to live with it until I find a fix.
I tried your suggestion of turning the color depth to 8 and it seems to make no difference with regards to the resolution. Thanks for the suggestion though. Maybe you know how to change the login screens resolution though? It's still stuck in that 1024x768 that runs off the micro screen of the iBook.