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I'm having trouble getting X to run with the defaults on my chakra linux live-cd. It is an Arch based distro. I have a thinkpad x40 with Intel 855GME and I get "no valid modes" error from X. I figure I should try a different driver. But I'm not sure how I would do that. Can someone give me a few pointers?

*posted on stackoverflow first incase you hang out there too :p

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2 Answers 2

The latest intel X server is capable of figuring almost everything out itself. However, because it does so much automatic configuration, it will get confused if you're asking it do something the hardware decides it can't do.

The one in Ubuntu 9.04 is 2.6.3 and only needs the following xorg.conf file to startup:

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier      "Configured Monitor"

Section "Screen"
    Identifier      "Default Screen"
    Monitor         "Configured Monitor"
    Device          "Configured Video Device"
    SubSection "Display"
            Virtual 2560 1039
            # obviously put your real screen size here - I have two monitors :-)

Section "Device"
    Identifier      "Configured Video Device"
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Which driver did you use? The new or the legacy? And which kernel?

I've had my intel 950 running on ArchLinux with the new driver and X didn't need any configuration (Kernel: 2.6.30).

You could also manualy set your modelines as described in the ArchWiki article Intel Graphics. If you have the correct technical information for your laptop screen you could also generate your desired modeline yourself using the The XFree86 Modeline Generator.

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