[Novalug] incredibly stupid monitor

[Beartooth]

On Tue, 13 May 2008, Mackenzie Morgan wrote:

> On Mon, 2008-05-12 at 11:24 -0700, Beartooth wrote:
>> And is it true that ViewSonic doesn't make a 1280x1024 any 
>> more? There are certainly lots of them still for sale; but at 
>> viewsonic.com I did get 'We found "0" documents matching your 
>> query "1280x1024 lcd"'
>
> That's not even a standard (4:3) resolution.  That's 5:4 
> resolution. 1280x960 would be a proper 4:3 resolution.

 	Well, fwiw, I went to the local Staples yesterday in 
search of a particular Samsung that Dangerous Dave had 
recommended. It wasn't there, and the nearest thing to it in 
price was *way* rectangular -- looked like at least 2:1 to my 
untrained, unskilled eye. So I looked over what all else was 
there.

 	I ended up with an HPw2207h, 22" diagonal, 1680x1050 
native, which I make out to be 1.6:1 -- way wide for its height, 
but less so, to my eye, than most of what was there.

 	When I got home, I couldn't resist at least trying to 
find out if my oldest desktop (an ASUS A7N8X-VM400, I think it 
calls itself). It triple boots to CentOS 5, Fedora 8, and Ubuntu 
7 -- and no, I don't recall offhand if that's 7.04 or 7.10, nor 
much care. (Last time I booted to it, it offered to upgrade 
itself to the latest; I let it try; it failed.)

 	CentOS handled the new monitor better than any of them 
had handled the square one with the external transformer; it took 
me a while to realize that something, it or the monitor, was 
simply stretching the 1280x1024 that it was set for across the 
bigger space. (Yes, I calculate that it gives me two or three 
dozen more square inches, despite being so far off square.)

 	When I did realize that, I tried to reset it -- with the 
GUI for Display that both Fedora and CentOS have. Bad move. It 
apparently changed it in one place but not another. Result: the 
monitor tells me to change the resolution, then puts itself to 
sleep as soon as I try to log in (GUI-ly, of course). (Is there a 
way to log into text mode from the standard login prompt, 
rather than boot to it??

 	I'd've had to gnaw my way through booting to text mode 
(which I'd've had to find in some manual and then re-learn). So I 
booted to Fedora -- which also looks fine stretched -- mounted 
the CentOS partition, edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and got out. I'm 
about to reboot, trying CentOS again, just to see what I can see.

 	Stay tuned.

-- 
Beartooth Gerontoflatulocrat,
Cantankerous Codger
I have hunted, and I have lived.