Request for testers: Video hardware autodetection

[Mike A. Harris]

Mike A. Harris wrote:
> The latest xorg-x11-drv-* driver packages contain videoaliases
> files for kudzu et al. to use for video card autodetection and
> driver mapping.

One further clarification I should make, is that this request
was for "video card" detection.  Monitor/display detection is
a separate issue, which is done by the ddcprobe utility, which
gets invoked by system-config-display, and is x86 only.

The X server can also do monitor detection, however our default
configurations specify the monitor in the config file in most
cases.  The X server still probes the display when it is
possible to do so, but that information is not always used.

Video driver DDC problems, generally should be reported directly
to X.Org bugzilla to ensure the maintainers of the particular
driver see the issue.  In some cases it is a driver bug, in
other cases a hardware limitation, or a software limitation that
can't easily be overcome.  KVM switches can also block the DDC
signal.


Another problem which someone has brought up, is that on DFP
and LCD displays, and in particular wide-screen panels, often
the resolution that gets configured by default, does not match
the physical resolution of the DFP/LCD panel, causing hardware
scaling to be used, resulting in an ugly display.

For laptops and systems with Intel hardware, this is a video
BIOS limitation which can not be worked around currently without
documentation from Intel.  I believe that some "via" video
hardware has a similar problem.

In all cases of this nature, my recommendation is to try and
narrow down the problem you're having /before/ reporting a bug
anywhere.  A good place to get helpful troubleshooting info,
is xorg at lists.freedesktop.org and #xorg IRC channel on freenode.
In some cases, these limitations can be worked around with ugly
hacks that are out there (ie: i810resolution hack), and in other
cases modelines need to be added to the xorg.conf.  Of course
there may be a real bug somewhere, but it'll be more evident
once you've done some direct investigation based off advice from
the xorg mailing list.  Only then should one report a bug,
and it should be filed in the X.Org bugzilla at:
http://bugs.freedesktop.org

Hope this helps.  I'm getting good feedback from people, so
I'll try and post more advice here if more examples pop up. If
someone feels like summarizing any of this on the Fedora wiki,
or paraphrasing, etc., feel free.

Thanks everyone for testing, and providing bug reports and other
forms of feedback!


-- 
Mike A. Harris  *  Open Source Advocate  *  http://mharris.ca
                       Proud Canadian.