Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 186391
Review Request: 855resolution - Change video bios resolutions on laptops with Intel graphic chipsets
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:11:28 EST
Spec Name or Url: http://svn.rpmforge.net/svn/trunk/rpms/855resolution/ SRPM Name or Url: http://bordeaux.freshrpms.net/rpm/855resolution Description: This software changes the resolution of an available vbios mode. It is useful when the native screen resolution isn't advertised as available by the video bios by default.
That would be obsoleted by Eric Anholt's work in x.org: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2006-April/014555.html
Indeed, but until work is finished and an X update with that included pushed into FC4 and FC5, it's the only working solution for many users to get the native resolution of their laptop working. If no one seems to want to review the package, I have no problem in leaving it in freshrpms until X "does the right thing" on those Intel chipsets. I'll leave the request open for now, if anyone wants to step up (it's a fairly easy review).
Now we have modular X, we don't need "an X update with that included". We only need an updated xf86-driver-i810 package. You could build one of those and make it available for FC5 in the meantime, and perhaps that would help to accelerate its availability as a real update for Fedora? Poking around in binary-only drivers (which is basically what the BIOS is) isn't really something I'm happy about doing in Fedora packages.
Is there any potential for harm from using this? I can't see why it should be kept out of Extras just because it invokes deep magic. It's certainly useful to those who have no alternative, and I'm not confident that the built-in modesetting stuff will be finished within the time that FC5 is still receiving active maintenance. If, on the other hand, it can fry machines....
This may get obsoleted soon but I presently use it and choices are always nice. Needs work: -buildroot should be: %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}-root-%(%{__id_u} -n) -Add chkconf go both post and preun requires -Use %{_initrddir} -Don't config the hooks or the init in %files. -Strange license. Maybe query upstream to pick a commonly used license? Items for discussion: -This really shouldn't be enabled by default or have any default working config. I'd say force the user to read the documentation to make sure they know exactly what they are doing.
Jeremy, is your intel-with-modesetting driver RPM ok for use?
It works for me in the devel tree with an i945GM. It's available at http://people.redhat.com/~katzj/xorg-x11-drv-intel-modeset-1.6.0-2.i386.rpm (src.rpm also available there). You'll then need to modify your xorg.conf to specify the intel driver instead of i810. Feedback for whether it works on other Intel chipsets would be great.
Note that 855resolution seems to be superceded by 915resolution: http://www.geocities.com/stomljen/ Regarding non-inclusion on the grounds (comment #3) that it's hacking the bios - well, the upstream xorg driver will still be using the same techniques to hack the video bios - I don't see that one is more evil than the other :)
The question is not about the program being a hack, but rather about the lack of integration, and the fact that an integrated replacement is available, and should be hitting the FC5 repository soon enough. Basically, this package would be obsoleted pretty quickly.
Yeah, the xorg.conf approach is definitely much nicer. Let's just forget all about this "hack", and let the updated driver go in ASAP :-)