Resolution Problem LinuxMint 9 LXDE With Old Laptop

[plinux]

Hello everybody!

I want to install Linx Mint 9 Isadora LXDE on my old Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro v2030 Laptop.
Booting the Live USB works fine (done with UNetbootin). As soon as the GUI (I'm not sure if I'm rusing right jargon here - I'm talking about the login screen and desktop environment) shows up, I only see the upper-left Quadrant of the screen. If I change the resolution (which was set to 1600x1200 - very strange in my eyes) to 1024x768 (which is the highest supported by the laptop) in the Terminal ("xrandr -s 1024x768"), I get a broken screen and can't see anything. It's like horizontal green and white lines (I guess from the desktop-background).

IMG_20120504_003345.jpg

edit: I have the exact same problem with Crunchbang 10. --> Do you maybe have other (better) advices or tips in terms of distros for my old laptop? So far I've tried Xubuntu, slitaz and Windows 7


plinux



This is my first topic (yay!).

[seppalta]

My guess - graphics card too weak. Try Salix and/or Puppy.

[plinux]

My guess - graphics card too weak. Try Salix and/or Puppy.

But how can the graphic card be too weak, if crunchbang isn't working either?

[antikythera]

Graphics card should be fine if the necessary unichrome drivers are available to support it. although it seems graphics driver setup related (Fujitsu Siemens will have bought a reference design from VIA and altered to suit their own design requirements for your notebook). I would look into changing the screen refresh rate. Unsupported refresh rates or screen scaling modes would cause the garbled mess you are experiencing or a blank screen.

[plinux]

alright,
you're totally right it's probably the refresh rate.

edit: nope, in usb-live linuxmint it's still not working. When I type in "xrandr" in the Terminal, i get the possible resolutions listed. There 1024x768 and 61.00 beside it. So i typed in

Code: Select all

"xrandr -s 1024x768 -r 61

My result was the screen I've already posted - not working.

What do you guys think?

[antikythera]

Try the openchrome driver. Full documentation and support can be found here:

http://www.openchrome.org/trac/wiki/TOC

You may need it since it looks like you may need to get your hands in there and do some brief coding work to get them running right. Nothing too intense though

[plinux]

oh boy..thank you very much, antikythera!

I'll see what I can do.

[NickF]

Hi folk

I'll start by saying I'm an absolute newbie!
I have the same Amilo Pro laptop, but have actually been trying to install Linux PepperMint 3 (which I guess should be pretty similar). I've used it happily on some other laptops.
However, on the Amilo, even trying the live CD, once the CD starts to load the screen goes blank - and I never see anything more at all. That makes it very difficult to proceed, because I have simply no idea what is happening!
The CD works for while, but eventually stops leaving me without a clue.

If any of you can point me in the right direction I'd be most grateful.
I'm particularly keen to know if the original poster has been successful.

Many thanks.