MINOR Success Story

[deputyjim]

Well, I spent about 6 hours last night trying to install the NVidia drivers in my Mandrake 9.0 system. After scouring this forum, the forum on linuxnewbie, and reading the faq on the NVidia web site, nothing worked. I did XF86Config-4, and used XFdrake to no avail. The farthest I got was launching startx from the command line and getting a moving cursor, but only a frozen screen otherwise. So I decided pull down my CDs and do an upgrade/reinstall. I skipped everything except for configuring X Windows at the end of the installation, and viola! I was up and running in full resolution on my laptop (Toshiba Satellite at 1400*1050 running GeForce 4 Go).

However, I say MINOR success story because 1) I'm not sure whether I'm running the new drivers (although when I first installed MDK 9.0 the best resolution I could get was 1280*1024) and 2) there's a small vertical space on the right side of the screen where the resolution does not reach. It's not a show-stopper, just mildly irritating. Plus, since I've got it working, I'm hesitant to screw with it any more. However, I would like to get it right some time. So I have 2 questions: how do I know if I'm running the new drivers for sure ("nvidia"?) and how can I adjust the dimensions so the screen image goes to the bezel?

Additionally, I'd like to thank everyone for being so helpful even though I just lurked. Thanks in advance.

Jim

[Klaus-P]

" there's a small vertical space on the right side of the screen "

run "xvidtune" and try moving the visible screen window, you'll soon see how to do it when you run it.
If you run it as root this program can also modify your XF86Config file
changing the modeline entries that are responsible for the small vertical space. BUT do also check out your monitor's technical manual
about monitor's OSD (on screen display) to change video display settings. This could do the same if it's available on your monitor.

a " cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version " should report you your nvidia driver version. If it is 3123 it's the latest.
(At least i hope so ;-))

[deputyjim]

Thanks for the tip. I guess I didn't mention I don't have a monitor per se, I have a laptop, so it's a flat panel display. The xvidtune didn't work for me. I guess I'll muck around with XF86Config a bit to see if I can fine-tune things. Thanks again for your help.

Jim

[Klaus-P]

You might check out

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/

especially the related links to Xfree86 and video
related issues.