[SOLVED] Can't get xf86-video-r128 to work...

Question

Hello! Arch newbie here, so far bumpy, but so far so good. Currently posting from TWM for kicks...
Anyways, my old junker of a computer was where I installed arch, so I could get a hang of it. The graphics card is a ATi RAGE XL AGP 2X... having no luck with xf86-video-ati, I installed xf86-video-r128, and got graphics working for the first time in arch. Hooray!
Unfortunately, I can't seem to get my monitor's native resolution of 1280x1024. If I try, the monitor refuses to display, and errors out with "Out of Range". I know it's definitely possible, since other linux installations have auto-configured it so far. So, I'm wondering what I need to modify in xorg.conf to get 1280x1024 working.
It seems like a refresh rate problem, but when I looked over the file, I noticed that "Driver" was set to "vesa". Changing it to "r128" did nothing, as the X server refused to start because it couldn't find any devices.
I will post my xorg.conf shortly.
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "glx"
Load "dbe"
Load "dri2"
Load "dri"
Load "record"
Load "extmod"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Jean"
ModelName "Unknown"
EndSection
Section "Device"
### Available Driver options are:-
### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
### [arg]: arg optional
#Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
#Option "DefaultRefresh" # [<bool>]
#Option "ModeSetClearScreen" # [<bool>]
Identifier "Card0"
Driver "vesa"
VendorName "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName "Rage XL AGP 2X"
BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "DontZap" "False"
EndSection
As you can see, the Modes section under 24-bit depth doesn't have "1280x1024", but if I add it in, the X server will default to it (correctly), but I won't be able to see anything.
Last edited by kareeser (2009-05-30 21:25:23)

Answer 1

Karol, thanks for replying so quickly
I tried your suggestion to replace "vesa" with "ati" in the "Driver" line. X failed to start, but for some reason, there was some leftover code in xf86-video-ati that caused it to look for the mach64 driver... which as I understand, used to be installed with xf86-video-ati, but no longer... hrm! A quick "pacman -S xf86-video-mach64" later, I now have a working 1280x1024 resolution. Excellent! Changed the DefaultDepth to 16, and now my system is nice and zippy.
A similar problem is that I still cannot get 1280x1024 in vc1. In /boot/grub/menu.lst, I have "vga=773" added, but that's as high as I can go, vga=775 won't work with the same reason above.
Small problems in the grand scheme of things. I'm glad the main issue is solved
Last edited by kareeser (2009-05-30 01:34:01)