X on Dell Inspiron 8500 is scaled to middle of screen

[Doug White]

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 reed at reedmedia.net wrote:

> Using XFree86 4.3.0 from packages under 5.2 (i386).
> XFree86 -configure created a config that worked
> but the viewed display is only a small rectangle
> in the middle of larger screen.

This just means that the configured resolution isn't the same as the LCD
resolution. You'll need to modify the generated XFree86 config to use the
same resolution.Easy way is to modify the Screen section and add 2 lines.

The first line you should add is 'DefaultDepth n' at the 'Screen' level. n
being the bitdepth you want, usually 24.

The second line should go under 'Depth n', where n is what you picked
above, and looks like:

Modes	"1400x1050"

where 1440x1050 is your LCD's resolution.

This depends on the video driver detecting and forging modelines for your
lcd's resolutions.  You may need to increase the HorizSync and VertRefresh
ranges so they encompass the sizes you want. You can generally fake these
since refresh rates don't apply to LCDs the same way they do to CRTs,
although usually the video driver munges the modes to work with your LCD
anyway.

The X startup output is useful to look at; it usually in
/var/log/XFree86.0.log. This might point out why you aren't getting the
best modes.

Hope this helps.

-- 
Doug White                    |  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve
dwhite at gumbysoft.com          |  www.FreeBSD.org