I hope the following will help somewhere ine the world any Linuxian having trouble declaring his/her Samsung Syncmaster 940NW en 1440x900 in OpenSuSE 11.0 so he/she will not waste three days in the operation just as I did. I consider here the 940NW as the only screen (no bigger and more recent screen on DVI, for instance).
Here is what to put in /etc/X11/xorg.conf in place of the existing /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Do not use sax2. Do not use YaST (at least concerning screen resolution). Do not use nvidia-settings. These three things are probably excellent, but seem unable both to communicate and yield correct results for some 16/10 screens on a VGA plug.
init 3 before you begin, so the X server will be stopped (yes, of course, as root !), then just cut and paste the following in place of your existing /etc/X11/xorg.conf (save the previous one somewhere, just in case) :
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout[all]"
Screen "Screen[0]" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
Option "Clone" "off"
Option "Xinerama" "off"
EndSection
Section "Files"
InputDevices "/dev/gpmdata"
InputDevices "/dev/input/mice"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/local"
# ...] (le détail de la liste est sans réel intérêt)
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc/sgi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/xtest"
FontPath "/opt/kde3/share/fonts"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "extmod"
Load "glx"
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "on"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard[0]"
Driver "kbd"
Option "Protocol" "Standard"
Option "XkbLayout" "fr" # **You might want some other language**
Option "XkbModel" "pc102" # try also 105
Option "XkbOptions" "caps:shiftlock"
Option "XkbRules" "xfree86"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse[1]"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Name" "ImPS/2 Generic Wheel Mouse"
Option "Protocol" "explorerps/2"
Option "Vendor" "Sysp"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "Modes"
Identifier "Modes[0]"
ModeLine "1440x900" 106.5 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 901 904 932 # **This one was hard to get !**
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor[0]"
VendorName "--> VESA"
ModelName "1440X900@60HZ"
UseModes "Modes[0]"
DisplaySize 431 269
HorizSync 50.0 - 70.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 60.0
Option "CalcAlgorithm" "XServerPool"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Device[0]"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVidia"
BoardName "GeForce 7600 GS"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen[0]"
Device "Device[0]"
Monitor "Monitor[0]"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1440x900" "1366x768" # etc.
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1440x900" "1366x768" # etc.
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1440x900" "1366x768" # etc.
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 32
Modes "1440x900" "1366x768" # etc.
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1440x900" "1366x768" # etc.
EndSubSection
EndSection
Once the preceding is saved, you may type :
init 5
so the X server will be restarted. The graphic startup will be excellent, with even very small fonts quite crisp and nicely contrasted. Optionally use setting buttons on the screen to get even better results.
My video card is a 7600 GS, but as the NVidia driver is unified, I am pretty sure it should work as well for any other NVidia card, and perhaps for other poorly recognized (VGA plugged) 1440x900 LCD screens as well.