Kubuntu on Thinkpad T22

[^rooker]

[PROBLEM]
I ran into some problems with the T22's Savage graphic card. First of all it was detected properly, but the driver being used was "vesa" which led to the following annoyances:

• DVD playback stuttering
  Scrolling within windows sucked! (low refresh rate)
  Loading xorg driver "savage" forced me to 800x600

[SOLUTION]
Thanks to a bug report, I figured out which settings to use for this monitor/graphic adapter within my /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Settings for the Savage graphic card:

Code: Select all

Section "Device"
        Identifier      "S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV"
        Driver          "savage"
        BusID           "PCI:1:0:0"
        Option          "BusType" "PCI"
        Option          "DmaMode" "None"
EndSection

The important, additional lines are Option "BusType" "PCI" and Option "DmaMode" "None" - because they are missing in the detected config.

Settings for the monitor (it's a notebook, so it makes perfect sense to mention its settings here together with the graphic card. )

Code: Select all

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Generic Monitor"
        Option          "DPMS"
        HorizSync       28-51
        VertRefresh     43-60
EndSection

Without the values for HorizSync and VertRefresh, you will end up using 800x600.

And finally, the whole section "Screen":

Code: Select all

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Default Screen"
        Device          "S3 Inc. 86C270-294 Savage/IX-MV"
        Monitor         "Generic Monitor"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           1
                Modes           "1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           4
                Modes           "1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           8
                Modes           "1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           15
                Modes           "1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           16
                Modes           "1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           24
                Modes           "1024x768"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

I've removed all the other resolutions (800x600, 640x480), because they don't make sense on a TFT anyway if they ain't its natural resolution (resizing routines of this T22's display suck)

btw: Did I mention that I LOOOOVE KNotes / TomBoy notes? They are awesome when debugging a problem.