CentOS4 on Dell Inspiron 9300 - Discuss

14 Mar 2006


      I just purchased a Dell Inpiron 9300 from the Dell Outlet store. 
Installing CentOS4 went very, very smoothly until I tried configuring
X.  The 17" screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio with a 1920x1200
resolution.  The best I could manage using system-config-display was
1600x1200.  So, after a bit of research, I hand editted the xorg.conf
file (reproduced below) and it now works great.  Maybe there was a
simpler solution, but I didn't know one.  Enlightenment would be
welcome, but in the meantime, here's a solution that works.  Enjoy.
# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display
Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "single head configuration"
        Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
        InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
# RgbPath is the location of the RGB database.  Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db").  There is normally
# no need to change the default.
# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.
        RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
        FontPath     "unix/:7100"
EndSection
Section "Module"
        Load  "dbe"
        Load  "extmod"
        Load  "fbdevhw"
        Load  "glx"
        Load  "record"
        Load  "freetype"
        Load  "type1"
        Load  "dri"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))
#       Option  "Xleds"         "1 2 3"
# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
#       Option  "XkbDisable"
# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the
# lines below (which are the defaults).  For example, for a non-U.S.
# keyboard, you will probably want to use:
#       Option  "XkbModel"      "pc102"
# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:
#       Option  "XkbModel"      "microsoft"
#
# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.
# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:
#       Option  "XkbLayout"     "de"
# or:
#       Option  "XkbLayout"     "de"
#       Option  "XkbVariant"    "nodeadkeys"
#
# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and
# control keys, use:
#       Option  "XkbOptions"    "ctrl:swapcaps"
# Or if you just want both to be control, use:
#       Option  "XkbOptions"    "ctrl:nocaps"
#
        Identifier  "Keyboard0"
        Driver      "kbd"
        Option      "XkbModel" "pc105"
        Option      "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Mouse0"
        Driver      "mouse"
        Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
        Option      "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
        Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
        Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection
Section "Modes"
        Identifier   "16:10"
        ModeLine     "1920x1200_60.00" 193.2 1920 2048 2256 2592 1200
1201 12041242 -hsync +vsync
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "Monitor0"
        VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
        ModelName    "LCD Panel 1920x1200"
        UseModes     "16:10"
        HorizSync    28.0 - 110.0
        VertRefresh  60.0 - 60.0
        Option      "dpms"
EndSection
Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "nv"
        VendorName  "Videocard vendor"
        BoardName   "NVIDIA Unknown (generic)"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "Videocard0"
        Monitor    "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
#               Modes    "1600x1200" "1400x1050" "1280x1024"
"1280x960" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
                Modes    "1920x1200"
        EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "DRI"
        Group        0
        Mode         0666
EndSection