After installing Ubuntu 12.04 on a Toshiba NB510 the screen resolution is 800x600 instead of the native 1024x600. This is a netbook that contains the infamous GMA3650 (aka PowerVR SGX5450) which is poorly supported by the Linux kernel. I've looked around and tried several different solutions. Namely:
- I've tried installing a newer kernel (3.3+), since some people have reported success with it. That didn't seem to fix the resolution problem.
- I've tried installing an older version of Ubuntu (10.04), since someone suggested there's an older driver that should provide basic support for the card, but the liveCD image wouldn't boot.
- I've tried using this ppa. On first reboot, the screen resolution was correct. Subsequent reboots lead to a blank screen immediately after grub.
- I've tried passing the kernel option
video=1024x600
with the above PPA, to no avail. - I've tried installing a daily build of Quantal. The live image boots with the correct resolution. The installed system boots to a blank screen. The
video=1024x600
option doesn't work here either. - On Quantal I've blacklisted the
gma500_gfx
driver to force the use ofvesa
. This causes Ubuntu to boot into a 800x600 resolution. After this, I've tried using the following
xorg.conf
:
Section "Device"
Identifier "card"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "panel"
Modeline "1024x600_DDC" 54.03 1024 1048 1184 1344 600 603 609 670 -hsync -vsync
Option "PreferredMode" "1024x600_DDC"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen"
Device "card"
Monitor "panel"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x600_DDC"
EndSubSection
EndSection
where the modeline comes from DDC, as reported in
/var/log/Xorg.0.log
. This seems to have no effect, with the resolution stuck at 800x600.- Additionally, adding
nomodeset
to the kernel command line does not help with either the resolution problem or the blank-screen problem.
Ideally, since I don't think I can trust the gma500_gfx
driver or that from Meego (the one in Sarvatt's PPA), I would like to use the vesa
driver (probably reverting to 12.04), and specify the resolution in a xorg.conf
file, but I can't seem to get this to work. Any ideas?
BTW, this is a problem I'm helping a friend with, I don't have direct access to the machine.