trying to get a WUXGA virtual desktop and WUXGA external video?

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2009, Adam Jackson wrote:

> On Tue, 2009-02-24 at 08:31 -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > i asked about this a while back on the standard fedora list but
> > since i want to try this on f11 alpha, i figured this is a better
> > forum.
> >
> >   given a (as-yet unidentified laptop) that has less than a full WUXGA
> > (1920x1200) display, i'd like to figure out how (or whether it's even
> > possible) to
> >
> >   1) get a WUXGA resolution virtual desktop, and
> >   2) be able to generate full WUXGA resolution of that virtual desktop
> >      on the external video port (be it DVI or HDMI, or possibly even
> >      display port)
> >
> >   before i go any further, is this even *theoretically* possible?  i'm
> > assuming that the onboard video card will be the limiting factor -- if
> > the card can't handle WUXGA, then there's no way this is going to
> > work.
> >
> >   does this question make any sense from a technical point of view?
>
> Yes, it's just trivial.

  i thought as much, i just wanted confirmation.

> Pretty much any laptop made in the last five years can handle virtual
> size up to 2048 wide.  Many can go even further.  Anything with DVI or
> HDMI can drive 1920x1200 [1].  If the 19x12 display is connected at
> server startup, we'll even size the virtual big enough for you.  If it's
> not it might take a little coercing.
>
> Section "Screen"
>     Identifier "Screen0"
>     # ...
>     Virtual 1920 1200
> EndSection
>
> Will force the virtual size to 1920x1200.  Prior to xserver 1.6, RANDR
> 1.2-style drivers would not give you the traditional panning view within
> that virtual size; as of xserver 1.6 that's possible but requires that
> it's been wired up in the driver.
>
> [1] - Assuming sufficient memory bandwidth, but you almost certainly
> have enough.

  ah, there's the rub -- i'm assuming you mean video processor memory,
yes?  which means if i have a sufficiently old laptop, i should check
carefully what my video card is.  in my case, one of my laptops has a
1280x800 display, with an ATI radeon xpress 200M -- i can't remember
how much video memory that has but it's possible that it simply
doesn't have enough for this, correct?

  and what inspired this query was this:

   http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS9018910434.html

that netbook has an HDMI port and i would *dearly* love to be able to
use it to generate full WUXGA output on that port.  has anyone else
done that?  used a netbook of some flavour running fedora to drive a
full WUXGA display?

rday
--


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Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry:
    Have classroom, will lecture.

http://crashcourse.ca                          Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
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