sis video card on debian

The sis driver on debian (any linux as a fact) can't do the 1280x800 resolution that the sis 771/671 card provides. You will have to compile it by hand.

First get the fix at this location :

git clone git://gitorious.org/xf86-video-sis671/sis-671-fix.git

And run this automake command :

autoreconf -vi

automake does not seem to work, because it kept complaining about missing xorg-macros. These are by the way in package xutils-dev. Some more packages you might want :

xorg-dev, xutils-dev, libtool

Now run

./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-static
make 
make install

Alter /etc/X11/xorg.conf to use the new driver sismedia. Or generate one with

xorg -configure 
cp ~/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Restart the server with :

service gdm3 restart

Probably all you now need is a working framebuffer , so see next chapter.

framebuffer

Skip for a short fix to the end, if you have a problem with /dev/fb0 no such file or directory.

The framebuffer device provides an abstraction for the graphics hardware. It's provides a higher level layer on top of the low-level hardware.

The first framebuffer is /dev/fb0, second /dev/fb1 etc... These are normal memory devices, and you can read and write to them. For instance taking a screen shot :

cp /dev/fb0 myfile

See for more depth this page https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/fb/framebuffer.txt.

Also this page is interesting : http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/33596/no-framebuffer-device-how-to-enable-it

It will tell you that a lot of distributions disable the framebuffer for older cards, so take a look in the file : /etc/modprobe.d/fbdev-blacklist.conf to see if your card is in there, comment it out and restart.

xrandr and reboot

With my new Philips 272S monitor i had the problem that it's best resolution 2560x1440x60hz was not available in the installed system. It probably would have been when reinstalling but now i had to do this :

xrandr --newmode "2560x1440_55.00" 220.812 2560 2608 2640 2720 1440 1443 1448 1478 -hsync -vsync
xrandr --addmode HDMI2 2560x1440_55.00
xrandr --output HDMI2 --mode 2560x1440_55.00

But of course this is temporary and after reboot they will be undone. So add a file call 50-philips.conf to /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ with these contents :

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "HDMI2"
    #Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "True"
    #HorizSync 14-70
    #VertRefresh 48-62
    Modeline "2560x1440_55" 220.812 2560 2608 2640 2720 1440 1443 1448 1478 -hsync -vsync Option "PreferredMode" "2560x1440_55"
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Default Screen"
    Monitor "HDMI2"
    Device "Default nvidia Device"

    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "2560x1440_55"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

That's it, reboot and watch.

gtf

If you want/need to generate your own modelines, use generalized timing formula (gtf) tool

gtf 2560 1440 60

# 2560x1440 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 89.40 kHz; pclk: 311.83 MHz
Modeline "2560x1440_60.00"  311.83  2560 2744 3024 3488  1440 1441 1444 1490  -HSync +Vsync

The output after Modeline can be cut-n-pasted after your xrandr --newmode line.

sound output

Another problem was that this laptop has a (rather BAD) speaker built in and linux insists on using that via HDMI. Very annoying, but it can be altered with this commandline :

pacmd set-card-profile 0 output:analog-stereo

This will set the profile 0 to analog. But to make it permanent also add these lines to /etc/pulse/default.pa. After reboot the sound was ok !

set-card-profile 0
set-default-sink 1

Panels on the other monitor

Linux chooses the position of dual monitors for you. Switching is easy by dragging the monitors in the "Monitors" preference dialog. But that moves the panels as well.

If you want to choose where the panel(s) are (is) :

• Right-click the panel you wish to move and select "Properties".
• Un-check the "Expand" option under the "General" tab.
• Grab one of the edges of the panel by clicking on the left or right end (top or bottom end for vertical panels).
• Drag the bar to the desired screen and position.
• Check the "Expand" option in the "Panel Properties" window and click "Close".
• And if you want panels on both screens, just click right on a panel and choose "New Panel" it will be empty though !!