ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 (M11)
From LinuxLaptopWiki
Contents |
[edit] Driver and Widescreen resolution
The standard XFree86/Xorg "radeon" driver supports the D470K's LCD just fine, and supports all features except 3D acceleration (see below).
This is the one thing I really would have liked to have changed about the setup. Without a doubt NVidia is the winner on Linux, in terms of driver, support and encouragement. They also have a 64 bit version out... who knows when ATI will allow us to use full graphics (i.e. 3D acceleration) when we change to 64 bit linux. Also they don't officially support the Mobility Radeon range! Please sign the ATI Petition for Adequate Drivers in Linux !!
Having said all this, their driver runs pretty well in 32 bits. My big challenge was getting the monitor to run in its native 1440x900 resolution. I made all kinds of attempts including various modeline settings, and changed from the included ati proprietry driver in mandrake to a newer version from their website (which is meant for the regular 9700).
Of course, I had no luck here because despite my ordered specs I was actually given a WUXGA 1680x1050 (yesh!). When I actually tried this option the display is great, wide, nice and crisp. Who knows what I screwed up before I actually worked this out... it was an option already available in the XFdrake tool.
[edit] XFree86/Xorg Configuration
Normally the LCD will be auto-configured by the latest Linux distributions (some older ones do not know that 1680x1050 resolution is possible).
For those configuring X11 manually, the following should be added to /etc/X11/XF86Config:
Section "Monitor" Identifier "Clevo WUXGA+ LCD" Option "CalcAlgorithm" "CheckDesktopGeometry" # DisplaySize 360 228 # (NOTE: uncomment this to make font point sizes accurate to real dimensions) HorizSync 31.5-120 VertRefresh 50-90 Option "DPMS" UseModes "Modes0" EndSection Section "Modes" Identifier "Modes0" ModeLine "1680x1050" 141.09 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1051 1054 1086 ModeLine "1680x1050" 168.71 1680 1792 1976 2272 1050 1051 1054 1092 ModeLine "1680x1050" 195.95 1680 1800 1984 2288 1050 1051 1054 1098 ModeLine "1680x1050" 223.84 1680 1808 1992 2304 1050 1051 1054 1104 ModeLine "1280x960" 97.68 1280 1352 1488 1696 960 961 964 993 ModeLine "1280x960" 116.18 1280 1360 1496 1712 960 961 964 998 ModeLine "1280x960" 135.32 1280 1368 1504 1728 960 961 964 1004 ModeLine "1280x960" 155.01 1280 1376 1512 1744 960 961 964 1010 ModeLine "1024x768" 61.89 1024 1080 1184 1344 768 769 772 794 ModeLine "1024x768" 73.89 1024 1080 1192 1360 768 769 772 799 ModeLine "1024x768" 86.18 1024 1088 1200 1376 768 769 772 803 ModeLine "1024x768" 97.84 1024 1088 1200 1376 768 769 772 808 ModeLine "800x600" 36.88 800 832 912 1024 600 601 604 621 ModeLine "800x600" 44.13 800 840 920 1040 600 601 604 624 ModeLine "800x600" 51.73 800 840 928 1056 600 601 604 628 ModeLine "800x600" 58.73 800 840 928 1056 600 601 604 632 ModeLine "640x480" 23.06 640 656 720 800 480 481 484 497 EndSection
[edit] TV out
Haven't looked at this yet...
[edit] VGA out
Works fine. However, if you're connecting the laptop to a video projector with a VGA input, make sure the projector supports 1680x1050 resolution! Not all projectors support such a high resolution, so you may need to step it down. This can usually be done by pressing Ctrl+Alt+"+" (+ on the numeric keys) to cycle through the available resolutions. You can also use the popup menu on the KDE taskbar (if it's present) or with xrandr at the command line.
In some cases you may need to boot the system with the VGA connector already connected to have the external monitor or projector recognized.
[edit] Problems
I get a few blue bands that flash constantly when I'm using the video overlay to watch movies. Guessing its a driver issue. I got around this with a slightly less fast driver in mplayer, far from ideal!
[edit] Misc Stuff
When apps screw up the display, you can often ctrl-f1 (to get to a virtual terminal) and ctrl-f7 to get back to X. you may need to move the mouse around a bit to redraw parts of the screen, or repeat the above process to redraw everything.
[edit] Update on 64bit drivers
64 bit, 3d Accelerated drivers for x86_64 are out at www.ati.com
