Lost sliding windows w/ DVI Syncmaster monitor

[Felix Miata]

Paul Rogers composed on 2020-03-31 23:09 (UTC-0700):

> For years, in xorg.conf I've enjoyed declaring a larger than
> comfortable maximum resolution at the end of the modes, then one more
> comfortable for my old eyes for use.  Then I could slide the visible
> window around the larger virtual window to bring diferent parts into
> view.  I recently upgraded to a DVI Syncmaster monitor and this
> facility no longer works.  The mouse pointer will disappear off the
> right & bottom edges, but the viewable area is firmly fixed in the
> upper left corner of the virtual window.  This seems to come from the
> monitor--I tried it also with a Dell monitor, and had the same
> behavior.  Is there come configuration option that will bring it back
> for me?

The effect you like is called panning.

I don't think it has anything to do with the Samsung or the Dell, but rather with
however you are trying to configure. How exactly are you configuring? Also, you're
using a very slow generic X driver (VESA) that I suspect may not support panning.
It's also possible that the problem is your distro's build of 1.18.4 server or
driver is broken WRT panning. ISTR panning was broken in the server for quite some
time, depending on configuration method, and the patch to fix for which may not have
been included in your quite old 1.18.4 version.

Please show us your GPU specification, thus:

	# inxi -Gxx

Panning is working fine here, 1920x1200 visible area on a 2560x1440 desktop, and
1440x900 visible area on a 1920x1920 desktop, using the default modesetting driver:

# inxi -SGxx
System:    Host: hp945 Kernel: 4.12.14-lp151.28.44-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.5.0 Desktop: KDE 3 wm: kwin
           dm: startx Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.1
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210] vendor: eVga.com. driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0a65
           Display: server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.2 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes
# xrandr --fb 2560x1440 --output DVI-I-1 --mode 1920x1200 --panning 2560x1440
# xdpyinfo | grep dimen
  dimensions:    2560x1440 pixels (541x304 millimeters)
# xrandr | egrep 'onnect|creen|\*' | grep -v disconn | sort -r
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1440, maximum 8192 x 8192
DVI-I-1 connected primary 2560x1440+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 519mm x 324mm panning 2560x1440+0+0
   1920x1200     59.95*+
moz at 00srv:/pub/Screenshots/KDE>
moz at 00srv:/pub/Screenshots/KDE>
moz at 00srv:/pub/Screenshots/KDE> cat /pub/Tmp/out

# inxi -SGxx
System:    Host: hp945 Kernel: 4.12.14-lp151.28.44-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.5.0 Desktop: KDE 3 wm: kwin
           dm: startx Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.1
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GT218 [GeForce 210] vendor: eVga.com. driver: nouveau v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10de:0a65
           Display: server: X.Org 1.20.3 driver: modesetting resolution: 1440x900~60Hz
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0 128 bits) v: 3.3 Mesa 18.3.2 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes
# xrandr --fb 1920x1920 --output DVI-I-1 --mode 1440x900 --panning 1920x1920
# xdpyinfo | grep dimen
  dimensions:    1920x1920 pixels (406x406 millimeters)
# xrandr | egrep 'onnect|creen|\*' | grep -v disconn | sort -r
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1920, maximum 8192 x 8192
DVI-I-1 connected primary 1920x1920+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 519mm x 324mm panning 1920x1920+0+0
   1440x900      59.90*
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is religion, not science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/