I got a new dell inspiron15R (5520). it came pre-installed with ubuntu 11.04. Since I’m used to opensuse I installed opensuse 12.1 instead. Right from installation procedure the screen in disoriented towards the right side.
The left margin starts around 2 inched from the left screen physical edge and the right part of the screen that doesn’t fit on the screen extends from left edge in the space left out by the left screen edge. So its like this, if i have to click the next button or scroll down I have that part of the window on the left side of my screen. if i move the cursor towards the right it disappears on the right edge and appears on the left edge… lol!
I installed it with AHCI disabled and the screen is fine, of course resolution is less, doesn’t detect USB devices and I don’t know what all. Neither KDE nor Gnome is able to make use of the graphics of the system. And looks like I have installed it on a grandpa computer. Its dual boot with windows 7. The difference between the two OS are like heaven and hell on the same hardware… rotfl!
System specs
[LEFT]PROCESSOR : INTEL CORE I5-3210M
DISPLAY : 15.6IN HIGH DEFINITION ([FONT=Arial]1366x768)
MEMORY : 4096MB (1X4096) 1600MHZ DDR3
HARD DRIVE : 500GB SERIAL ATA (5400RPM)
GRAPHICS : 1GB AMD RADEON HD 7670M
WIRELESS : DELL WIRELESS 1704 CARD
OS LINUX : UBUNTU EDITION VERSION 11.10
[/FONT]
This reads like the open source radeon driver is not quite coping with your laptops display hardware. You could try installing the proprietary AMD catalyst driver instead. (Given your laptop is using a new HD 7xxx graphics chipset, you’ll want to make sure you install the current driver version for it). AMD Support & Drivers
Mayday… Mayday…Mayday… I have installed AMD Catalyst™ 12.6 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver and everything seems to be working fine. The display is crisp and clear all desktop effects are smooth as butter.
THE SPLIT SCREEN ISSUE STILL REMAINS… I’ll add the images below…
This is the split screen. … (its taken on a phone camera… excuse the quality)
The X-server timing appears not to be correct for this display hardware. (I haven’t seen issues like this since using old CRT monitors 20 years ago). I don’t have a definite solution for this, but, it might be that we can manually define a modeline using the same resolution (but with different horizontal timing values), that will satisfy your display, so that the offset is corrected. It could be as simple as changing the horizontal sync polarity for example.
First, you’ll need to cut and paste the contents of /var/log/Xorg.0.log to SUSE Paste
Post the link to it here for examination. From that we may be able to edit some Xorg config files to provide a manual display mode.
As a quick and dirty experiment, see what is reported via
xrandr
You can use this command to set a lower resolution (if available). It won’t result in a clear, crisp picture, but if the offset disappears, it is a clue that it is just a timing issue. You can issue something like
will do that. Just want to clarify if a kernel upgrade would fix the issue. As i said, The display had no issues with ubuntu or mint which use kernel 3.2.xx as opposed to opensuse 12.1 using 3.1.xx.
Also, could someone tell me why I get a proper screenshot and not an actual display as I have posted in the pictures above. Screenshot is derived directly from the memory’s display buffer I guess. If so, the issue should be some where in between the memory and the LCD. Please advise.
will do that. Just want to clarify if a kernel upgrade would fix the issue. As i said, The display had no issues with ubuntu or mint which use kernel 3.2.xx as opposed to opensuse 12.1 using 3.1.xx.
It may well do. (I have no idea about that). Give it a go. One of our members has created a script to simplify this process for you:
Also, could someone tell me why I get a proper screenshot and not an actual display as I have posted in the pictures above. Screenshot is derived directly from the memory’s display buffer I guess. If so, the issue should be some where in between the memory and the LCD. Please advise.
Don’t confuse yourself. The display hardware is incorrectly displaying the image sent to it. This could be due to incorrect EDID, or some other quirk of the hardware and driver interaction. Post the info I requested.
It is possible to specify a manual modeline by editing the 50-monitor.conf and 50-screen.conf (in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ directory), or via a minimal /etc/X11/xorg.conf, however, I’m wondering if this offset issue only manifests within a Gnome environment. If you can, I’d like you to try via KDE (or XFCE) desktop environments.
I tried Linux Mint 12 and Ubuntu 12.04. They had no issues whatsoever. Also ran perfect after installing the proprietary drivers…
It would be interesting to see if anything different is reported by the Xorg server for these distros, although I suspect not.
Without having a complete handle on this problem, another thought I had, is to try configuring via the proprietary driver configuration utility (with root privileges of course)
I’m using KDE and the amd drivers have been configured with root. Now to compare Linux Mint’s I’ll have to install again. Also I tried upgrading the kernel from the tumbleweed standard repository. It just got worse. The x server would not start and online solutions mentioned configuring the amd drivers over again. I do have a bin file downloaded but the installation gets aborted with some error with “fglxr”. To do atiupgrade I need a wired LAN which I don’t have. I use mobile internet .
I don’t understand this. Distros like ubuntu come with hardly any issues (never had an issue whenever I installed ubuntu). But why is it that opensuse have to be so messy? Sorry, I’m frustrated a bit.
To do atiupgrade I need a wired LAN which I don’t have. I use mobile internet .
That doesn’t make sense to me. Any internet connectivity should be okay.
I don’t understand this. Distros like ubuntu come with hardly any issues (never had an issue whenever I installed ubuntu). But why is it that opensuse have to be so messy? Sorry, I’m frustrated a bit.
I can understand you frustration. Unfortunately, some of it comes down to your hardware, and some of your issues are down to you being a new user. Your Dell came pre-installed with Ubuntu, and Dell will undoubtedly have provided support to Ubuntu with making sure the various chipsets were supported properly. Without time, and the machine being in front of me , it is difficult to compare why one distro behaves okay, and another not, but we also get many former Ubuntu users switching to openSUSE for the same sorts of reasons. It just depends on the hardware and the users level of experience combined. A good way to try a distro without installing, is to try with a LiveDVD first. That can provide a lot of information about what might present problems for you later. You could also try installing 12.2 when it is released.
Yea… thats what I’m thinking too… 12.2 should work well. About the mobile internet. I connect my dongle and start yast from the terminal and do the necessary settings but I don’t know what is wrong it simply doesn’t connect. In KDE it uses network manager not at the terminal level. And I guess my problem is with the hardware - its pretty new hardware that came out some time after kernel 3.1 was out. As I said earlier the latest kernels on the latest distros are fine anyway. I guess I’ll wait for opensuse 12.2 and keep experimenting with 12.1. Cheers…
We are in the realms of experimentation here. There is no guarantee of success. The problem may lie with the unusual 1366x768 resolution and the drivers handling of that - in which case a bug report may be necessary. Anyway, with that in mind, it is very easy to try alternative modelines, with the same resolution, but subtlety different timing or sync polarities. For example, let’s try the following
You will now see this new display mode added to the list available
xrandr
To try that new mode, type
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768_60.00
It should switch immediately, but in the event that the display does not handle it well, you can restart the X-server by pressing CTRL-ALT-Backspace (twice). Another similar modeline you could try
Use the ‘xrandr --newmode…’ command to add it (take care with the syntax) If these 1366x768 modelines don’t do the trick, I think it might be worth trying a 1368x768 modeline too. Generated with cvt for example
hi… I’ll try it for sure… Can we put in on hold for a week or so, I mean I might be a slow to respond. I’m going to apply for a wired broadband connection on monday and may be I should have it in a week or so… Its too much to keep installing and removing and again installing all these drivers and updates on my current mobile broadband. Nevertheless I’ll keep the thread active by trying all that is possible offline.
Sure. It is a long shot anyway. Take your time to discover where the problem lies. It is certainly not a common one (as far as laptop displays go), but may relate to your particular graphics chipset only. Good luck.
I have the same problem with an ASUS U57A, Intel HD 3000 graphics, – the display offsets to the right and wraps left, all controls are valid. Navigation is normal though visually confusing – the cursor ‘jumps’ left when off-display-page right, and so on. ELILO (as well as pre-GUI) justifies properly on the left as does the initial Splash, from the the second Splash on is offset and wrapped.
This first appeared when installing openSuSE 12.1 so it may be an considered an Install issue related to “Legacy-Intel graphics driver” chosen by the Install script. BTW, I struggled through the installation because I needed an ELILO template/example (to clone/copy for multi-booting); Mageia 2 works fine but lacks ELILO or GRUB2 (preferred if only it will work with UEFI).
I need to complete a firmware update but this doesn’t appear to effect this bug/problem/issue – Win7_64 and Mageia 2 run fine, ASUS Update appears optional, etc.
Locating and installing newer X-11 drivers might be worthwhile or a waste of effort/time. It does appear to be relatively common symptom/bug which likely has a relatively universal solution.
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