On Wed, 2004-04-14 at 15:23, Curtis Rempel wrote: > I posted the following message on Jan 27 but only got one response > suggesting to download a commercial X server (which I would rather > avoid.) There must be an obvious solution to this problem, some > parameter or config file that just needs a tweak perhaps. I also tried > Mandrake 9.2 but it wouldn't even start X at all. Sorry, I don't have > the log from startx with Mandrake 9.2 handy, however, I could redo the > install if necessary to obtain some more clues. I hope that somebody > might be able to suggest something else I can adjust given the > description below since Fedora is my preference. I have also done a > boot from the Knoppix live CD and while the horizontal/vertical > adjustment is not optimal with X, at least the screen is not washed out. > > Here again is the problem: > > I've got a dual boot system with a Radeon 7500 and AOC 17Klr monitor > which works fine under XP. When I dual boot to Fedora (or even during > the Fedora install process), the screen is very washed out, almost as if > the brightness was too high and the contrast too low. Booting back to > Windows without touching the monitor controls gives a great picture > however. > > I installed Fedora using an IBM 2237 monitor and the picture was great > during install and subsequent boot. Fedora does not know about the AOC > 7Klr so I found the refresh rate settings on the AOC web site and > plugged them into MonitorsDB so I could select the monitor using > redhat-config-xfree86 - didn't change a thing, still all washed out. > > Given that the IBM monitor works fine, I doubt that the Radeon 7500 is > the culprit. That leaves the AOC 7Klr - however it works fine under > Windows. > > Has anybody seen this sort of behavior? It's almost barely usable if I > play with the monitor brightness/contrast (but still quite annoying). > Of course, when I reboot to XP, I have to fiddle with the controls again > to get the picture looking ok again. > > Any suggestions are welcome. I've done a ton of Linux installs but this > is the first time I've seen this one. > > Thanks, > > Curtis > > Please excuse the followup to my own posting, however, I have solved the problem and would like to share the solution. I received two suggestions via this list: 1) Try a commercial X server 2) Play around with the gamma setting Option 1 was not feasible. Option 2 did produce some improvement using the xgamma utility, however, as the monitor intensity was decreased, so did the crispness of the display (i.e. icons and windows started to get rough and fuzzy edges etc.) The solution involved booting various live CD distros to see if any of those would produce a proper video display. The only one that worked properly was Knoppix, and not surprisingly due to its wide range of hardware support. Comparing XF86Config generated by Knoppix with the Fedora equivalent produced a number of differences. However, in trying each different parameter one at a time, the "needle in the haystack" turned out to be: Option "sw_cursor" in the "Device" section. Once I added that to the Fedora XF86Config, everything was just fine.
