Display problems, new installation Mageia 5

[erastus11]

I'm a new Mageia user running the Mate DE. I've tried different distros over the years, and I like Mageia for the same reasons I liked Mandriva and PCLOS - the awesome configuration utilities. And being somewhat of an old-timer, I like it that you are still defaulting to Grub Legacy.

This system is old. It's a Socket 754 Asus KV8-X motherboard with a Sempron 2800+ CPU and 2 GB RAM. My video card is an AGP port Nvidia Geforce 6200, with 256 MB RAM. My monitor is a Hitachi CM721F. Coming directly from Fedora 20 (w/ Mate), and before that Debian 7, I did not have any display problems.

What happened the first time I installed Mageia: I let it install the proprietary Nvidia driver. System booted up at 1600x1200, which is maximum resolution I can have. It's too resource intensive so tried to lower it to 1152x864, from the drakconf GUI. It didn't work. Some drivers will work at that res and some won't. If it doesn't work, no big deal; I just go to 1024x768. But the problem was that the display went into the chaos color mode, but the system never came back from the Test button. I could find no way to exit and get to a console, so I had to hard-reboot.

There's more to the story, but for now please remind me how to get the pertinent logs to post here. I can log in as root, but I haven't found the logs for me as user.

Thanks.

[doktor5000]

The logs for the X server are at /var/log/Xorg.0.log for the current X run and /var/log/Xorg.9.log for the last run.
No need to be root, you can read them and attach them here as normal user.

Also, you shouldn't use the test button in drakx11 - often it does not work, but that's a problem with most graphics drivers ...
Can you please also post the output of

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xrandr -q

as normal user?

[erastus11]

I'm working on it...
I managed to get two Xorg log files but can't attach them yet because
I can't get an X session going.
The xrandr -q command doesn't work. Says command not found.
I don't know how to install it from the command line in Mageia.
I managed to run drakx11 conf and changed my monitor to generic
1024x768 @ 70Hz, and while at turned off automatically start X.
Now i see a message literally in my login command line that says
"[ 40.140879 xt_addrtype: ipv6 does not support BROADCAST matching.

I'm typing this from my phone, sorry. I didnt want to rebooot into windows...

[erastus11]

I'm getting a black screen with a working mouse when I log in as user.
Right now I'm starting fresh. I think I hosed the system with all my attempted conf
changes. This time I'm installing KDE, for something different. I know it's a hog but
we'll see what happens with the display.

[erastus11]

I reinstalled, with KDE this time. I let it install the Nvidia driver for the Geforce 6200 (which the system lists as "6100"). X is working. (The first thing I had to do was turn off about 95% of the KDE desktop effects, but anyway it's working).

There is one problem, or anomaly, which is that I chose 1024x768 while installing, and the Mageia Control Center > Hardware > Display says my resolution is 1024x768, but it definitely is not. It looks like 1600x1200.

Here is the output of xrandr -q:

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[tim@localhost ~]$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1600 x 1200, maximum 4096 x 4096
VGA-0 connected primary 1600x1200+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 350mm x 260mm
   1600x1200     75.00*+  70.00    65.00    60.00 
   2048x1536     60.00 
   1920x1440     60.00 
   1856x1392     60.01 
   1792x1344     60.01 
   1400x1050     74.76    59.98 
   1280x1024     85.02    75.02    60.02 
   1280x960      85.00    60.00 
   1152x864      75.00 
   1024x768      60.04    86.96    85.00    75.03    70.07    60.00 
   960x720       60.00 
   928x696       60.05 
   896x672       60.01 
   832x624       74.55 
   800x600       75.00    70.00    65.00    60.00    85.14    85.06    75.00    72.19    60.32    56.25 
   768x576       99.99    79.37 
   720x400       85.04 
   640x512       85.02    75.02    60.02 
   640x480       85.09    60.00    85.01    75.00    72.81    59.94 
   640x400       85.08 
   640x350       85.08 
   576x432       75.00 
   512x384       85.00    87.06    75.03    70.07    60.00 
   416x312       74.66 
   400x300       85.27    75.12    72.19    60.32    56.34 
   360x200       85.04 
   320x240       85.18    75.00    72.81    60.05 
   320x200       85.27 
   320x175       85.27 
DVI-I-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
TV-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)


Here is my xorg.conf (I seem to remember from some years back that this isn't necessarily used anymore--is that right?

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# File generated by XFdrake (rev 262502)

# **********************************************************************
# Refer to the xorg.conf man page for details about the format of
# this file.
# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerFlags"
    #DontZoom # disable <Ctrl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching)
    Option "DontZap" "False" # disable <Ctrl><Alt><BS> (server abort)
    AllowMouseOpenFail # allows the server to start up even if the mouse does not work
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier "monitor1"
    VendorName "Plug'n Play"
    ModelName "CM721F"
    HorizSync 31-95
    VertRefresh 50-120
    Option "PreferredMode" "1024x768"
   
    # TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
    # 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
    ModeLine "768x576"     50.00  768  832  846 1000   576  590  595  630
   
    # 768x576 @ 100 Hz, 61.6 kHz hsync
    ModeLine "768x576"     63.07  768  800  960 1024   576  578  590  616
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "device1"
    VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce 6100 to GeForce 7950"
    Driver "nvidia"
    Option "DPMS"
    Option "RenderAccel" "false"
    Option "DynamicTwinView" "false"
    Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "screen1"
    Device "device1"
    Monitor "monitor1"
    DefaultColorDepth 24
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 8
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 15
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 16
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
   
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth 24
        Modes "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"
    EndSubsection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier "layout1"
    Screen "screen1"
EndSection


I hope this answers some questions.

Thank you.

[doktor5000]

Please simply leave the display resolution in MCC or during installer alone, that is only for the physical monitor resolution, which is 1600x1200 in your case so you selected the wrong value.
Usually this should simply be set to Plug&Play. Resolution should later be changed by the means of your desktop environment, for KDE that would be kscreen, which is best explained in this short video: https://vimeo.com/58253613

For xrandr, if it's not installed, to install it simply run as root

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urpmi xrandr

Not sure why you want to decrease the resolution in the first place, that won't help that much with the performance IMHO ...

FWIW, you disabled render acceleration in your xorg.conf:

Option "RenderAccel" "false"

Please also comment what your current problem is. If you want to improve performance for KDE, see https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Speeding_up_KDE
You might also want to try some less demanding desktop like lxqt, lxde, xfce or cinnamon or mate.

Also, when your settings are hose, no need to reinstall, it's enough to move away/rename the settings for that desktop,
then you can login and get a fresh default desktop with default settings.

[erastus11]

I prefer Mate and only switched to KDE because my two Mageia installs with Mate did not go well for some reason. Actually I like KDE, except for the load it puts on an old machine.

You asked why I don't want 1600x1200. Because everything is too small at that resolution.

Anyway, thank you for the information and URLs. I've rediscovered that Nvidia doesn't use Xorg.conf. I will read your information and post back if I have any more display questions.

[doktor5000]

nvidia does use xorg.conf, like all other drivers. You probably disabled render accel in the options in drakx11.
See http://doc.mageia.org/mcc/5/en/content/XFdrake.html and when you click on options, this is what it should look like (I'm also using nvidia, with default options):

Bildschirmfoto2_168.png (55.16 KiB) Viewed 3307 times

And for the size, best bet is to increase DPI count so that all fonts are bigger, that mostly helps.
To do the latter, go to systemsettings => application appearance => fonts and increase the DPI to at least 120 at "Force fonts DPI". Then logout and login again.#
https://userbase.kde.org/System_Setting ... ance#Fonts