17" iMac G4 - how do I configure screen?

[Harvey Ussery]

On Sunday, August 3, 2003, at 05:24 AM, op132@comcast.net wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have an iMac G4 800MHz with a 17" LCD screen. I have twice installed 
> YDL 3.0,
> and once Mandrake 9.1, but never gotten the monitor to work in any 
> sort of GUI.
> In YDL 3.0, during installation, I can actually select the iMac LCD 
> 17" monitor
> (and of course I did), but it still doesn't work when I try to start 
> the GUI.
> Either it gives an error and says the screen failed or something, or 
> it starts
> and the screen shows a bunch of intricate, colorful, patterned 
> graphical
> garbage, somewhat like those "hidden image" optical illusion posters. 
> I've even
> gotten to the point, when this garbage is displayed, of logging in and 
> being
> startled by the rock-beat music jingle that presumably greets you when 
> you've
> logged on. So YDL thought it was working, but my screen was still 
> unintelligible.
>
> For video card, during installation, it defaults to one of the 
> GeForces, with
> 16MB RAM. My first install, I went with that; my second install, I 
> chose 64MB
> RAM (which is what I have).
>
> I also tried editing the /etc/X11/XF86Config file, as recommended on 
> the YDL
> website, by adding in the "Monitor" section:
>
> Option "CrtcNumber" "0"
> Modeline "1440x900" 129.73 1440 1480 1616 1848 900 903 906 936 -HSync 
> -VSync
>
> I tried it with those lines, and then again with those lines but 
> removing the
> existing entries for HSync or VRefresh or whatever they were. After 
> each change,
> I logged out of root and back into root, and then tried "startx" 
> again, but
> invariably it either gave me the error and returned me to the shell, 
> or it
> started the GUI as if it were working when all I saw was screen 
> garbage that
> changed subtly when I typed or moved the mouse.
>

Hi Marc,

Your description was completely parallel to my own experience, 
struggling to get a usable video display up & running--and I sure 
thought I had a solution for you until I saw that you had already tried 
making the change
Option "CrtcNumber" from "1" to "0"
--it was that change that was the charm in my case & finally got me a 
normal display. . . . .   Hmmmm, actually, I just noticed that you 
wrote that the above line was added to your >>"Monitor"<< section. In 
my Config file, that file is in the >>"Device"<< section; and that is 
where it seemed to work its magic for me. You might play around with 
that.

There are two other lines in the /etc/X11/XF86Config you might look at: 
In the "Monitor" section, check the 'Option    "DPMS"' line. During my 
attempts to resolve my prob, I "commented out" that line, like so:
#Option      "DPMS"
Also in the "Monitor" section I added the line
Option      "FlatPanel"--though truly, that addition didn't seem as 
crucial as the other 2 referenced above.

Hope the above will be of some assistance. I will try to post an copy 
of my entire /etc/X11/XF86Config file later today.

Good luck!    --Harvey