radeon + laptop external VGA

[Alex Deucher]

On 3/20/07, Gabe Yoder <gyoder at stny.rr.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm trying to use the external VGA port on my inspiron 8600, and I am having
> some troubles.  I've been following instructions from
> http://ozlabs.org/~jk/docs/mergefb/ and
> http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2006-January/012234.html
> but I can't get it working properly.  The card is a radeon 9600 mobility and I
> am using xf86-video-ati version 6.6.3 and version 1.2.0 of the server (this
> is on a LFS based system).  I've tried plugging in the external
> monitor and restarting the x server, but all I get on the external output is
> a gray screen (not the checkerbox screen).  The moitor indicates that the
> mode is 1600x1200 at 60Hz (a reasonable value, but the monitor can handle
> 75Hz at that resolution).  Any ideas?  Here is my xorg.conf and an example
> log file.
>
> Section "ServerLayout"
>         Identifier     "X.org Configured"
>         Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
>         Screen      1  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
>         InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
>         InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
> EndSection
>

Mergedfb and "xinerama" dualhead are separate.  You only need multiple
screen sections if you are using "xinerama" dualhead.  With mergedfb
the second head are handled by the same instance of the driver.

>
> Section "Screen"
>         Identifier "Screen0"
>         Device     "Card0"
>         Monitor    "Monitor0"
>         SubSection "Display"
>                 Viewport   0 0
>                 Depth     1
>         EndSubSection
>         SubSection "Display"
>                 Viewport   0 0
>                 Depth     4
>         EndSubSection
>         SubSection "Display"
>                 Viewport   0 0
>                 Depth     8
>         EndSubSection
>         SubSection "Display"
>                 Viewport   0 0
>                 Depth     15
>         EndSubSection
>         SubSection "Display"
>                 Viewport   0 0
>                 Depth     16
>         EndSubSection
>         SubSection "Display"
>                 Viewport   0 0
>                 Depth     24
>         EndSubSection
> EndSection
>

you should also add the modes you want to use to the display
subsection of your screen section.

Alex