[gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Philip Webb]

LCD monitors have come down to within my price range
& while my present CRT monitor has no problems,
it has occurred to me that if it did go on the blink,
I would buy an LCD to replace it & anyway might do so eg in 2006.
The model which looks best today is a Samsung 713V 17" at  CAD 299 
(my present 5-year-old CRT monitor is a Samsung 550s 15" ).

I use Xorg & plan to go over to Udev in the near future;
presumably with Udev, I would also have Hot/Coldplug installed.

I recall that when I installed Gentoo 031005 ,
I had to copy manually the monitor lines from my previous box,
which was running Mandrake, in order to get the monitor to work properly.
Without a working screen, there's no way I could do that this time.

My question to anyone who can advise is this:
do I just unplug the CRT & plug in the LCD ?  will it work so simply ?
If not, what more is needed ?

I looked at the Gentoo forum, wiki & dox, but found nothing to help.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,  Philip Webb : purslow@chass.utoronto.ca
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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Maxime Robert-Schreyers]

Hello

Philip Webb wrote:

>
>My question to anyone who can advise is this:
>do I just unplug the CRT & plug in the LCD ?  will it work so simply ?
>If not, what more is needed ?
>
>I looked at the Gentoo forum, wiki & dox, but found nothing to help.
>
>  
>
The horysontal sync and vertival refresh rates aren't likely
to be the same, so you'll have to adapt your current xorg.conf
I've read a few times that wrong values can harm your screen
(but never seen it happen) so be careful.

Or you can use 'xorgconfig' and answer the questions step by step.
I did this on a 17'' dell TFT at work and it worked first try.

Good luck
Maxime
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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[James Hiscock]

> >My question to anyone who can advise is this:
> >do I just unplug the CRT & plug in the LCD ?  will it work so simply ?

In most cases, yes, but you'll need to restart X if you do the swap
while it's running.

> The horysontal sync and vertival refresh rates aren't likely
> to be the same, so you'll have to adapt your current xorg.conf
> I've read a few times that wrong values can harm your screen
> (but never seen it happen) so be careful.
> 
> Or you can use 'xorgconfig' and answer the questions step by step.
> I did this on a 17'' dell TFT at work and it worked first try.

...or you could just remove the horizontal sync & vertical refresh
lines from your xorg.conf, and let xorg figure it out for you...

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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Philip Webb]

050721 James Hiscock wrote:
>>> My question to anyone who can advise is this:
>>> do I just unplug the CRT & plug in the LCD ?  will it work so simply ?
> In most cases, yes,
> but you'll need to restart X if you do the swap while it's running.

No !  I wasn't thinking of hotplugging the monitor !

>> The horysontal sync & vertical refresh aren't likely to be the same,
>> so you'll have to adapt your current xorg.conf
>> I've read a few times that wrong values can harm your screen
>> (but never seen it happen) so be careful.
>> Or you can use 'xorgconfig' and answer the questions step by step.
>> I did this on a 17'' dell TFT at work and it worked first try.
> or you could just remove the horizontal sync & vertical refresh lines
> from your xorg.conf, and let xorg figure it out for you.

Thanks for the advice.  Hopefully, if the mobo & graphics card handle it,
Xorg won't have too much difficulty getting used to it.
I would assume that LCDs are less susceptible to damage than CRTs,
if they are given the wrong sync & refresh rates.

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,  Philip Webb : purslow@chass.utoronto.ca
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|  Centre for Urban & Community Studies
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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[michael]

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005, Philip Webb wrote:

> 050721 James Hiscock wrote:
>>>> My question to anyone who can advise is this:
>>>> do I just unplug the CRT & plug in the LCD ?  will it work so simply ?
>> In most cases, yes,
>> but you'll need to restart X if you do the swap while it's running.
>
> No !  I wasn't thinking of hotplugging the monitor !
>
>>> The horysontal sync & vertical refresh aren't likely to be the same,
>>> so you'll have to adapt your current xorg.conf
>>> I've read a few times that wrong values can harm your screen
>>> (but never seen it happen) so be careful.
>>> Or you can use 'xorgconfig' and answer the questions step by step.
>>> I did this on a 17'' dell TFT at work and it worked first try.
>> or you could just remove the horizontal sync & vertical refresh lines
>> from your xorg.conf, and let xorg figure it out for you.
>
> Thanks for the advice.  Hopefully, if the mobo & graphics card handle it,
> Xorg won't have too much difficulty getting used to it.
> I would assume that LCDs are less susceptible to damage than CRTs,
> if they are given the wrong sync & refresh rates.
>
Also if I understand correctly, LCD monitors are fixed - rate, so you
have to buy one that has the resolution you like (not like CRT monitors
where you buy the highest resolution and then display at a lower rate if
you wish.

M

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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Walter Dnes]

On Sat, Jul 23, 2005 at 09:08:09AM -0700, michael@michaelshiloh.com wrote

> Also if I understand correctly, LCD monitors are fixed - rate, so
> you have to buy one that has the resolution you like (not like CRT
> monitors where you buy the highest resolution and then display at
> a lower rate if you wish.

  Some elaboration here.  You *CAN* use lower-than-native resolution.
However, that usually requires interpolation.  Going from 1280x1024 to
1152x864 or 1024x768 usually results in crummy display.  There is one
exception to this general rule.  If you divide a dimension by a whole
number, there isn't any interpolation.  Going from 1280x1024 to 640x512
or 320x256 is supposed to be nice and clean.

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Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Philip Webb]

050723 michael@michaelshiloh.com wrote:
> LCD monitors are fixed-rate,
> so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like
> with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution
> and then display at a lower rate if you wish.

Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available ?

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,  Philip Webb : purslow@chass.utoronto.ca
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|  Centre for Urban & Community Studies
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'  University of Toronto
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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote:
> 050723 michael@michaelshiloh.com wrote:
> > LCD monitors are fixed-rate,
> > so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like
> > with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution
> > and then display at a lower rate if you wish.
> 
> Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available ?

to make the fonts look bigger.

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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[David Corbin]

On Sunday 24 July 2005 06:21 am, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote:
> > 050723 michael@michaelshiloh.com wrote:
> > > LCD monitors are fixed-rate,
> > > so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like
> > > with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution
> > > and then display at a lower rate if you wish.
> >
> > Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available
> > ?
>
> to make the fonts look bigger.

Why don't you change your default font to a larger font instead?

David
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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[David Corbin]

On Sunday 24 July 2005 06:21 am, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote:
> > 050723 michael@michaelshiloh.com wrote:
> > > LCD monitors are fixed-rate,
> > > so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like
> > > with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution
> > > and then display at a lower rate if you wish.
> >
> > Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available
> > ?
>
> to make the fonts look bigger.

Why don't you change your default font to a larger font instead?

David
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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 06:45:56AM -0400, David Corbin wrote:
> On Sunday 24 July 2005 06:21 am, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> > On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote:
> > > 050723 michael@michaelshiloh.com wrote:
> > > > LCD monitors are fixed-rate,
> > > > so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like
> > > > with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution
> > > > and then display at a lower rate if you wish.
> > >
> > > Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available
> > > ?
> >
> > to make the fonts look bigger.
> 
> Why don't you change your default font to a larger font instead?

bitmap fonts only go so big - and there's not a matching bold for many of
the larger sizes.  I'm certain that some people sending bug-reports are
using lower screen resolutions because they're finding odd problems with
the small font sizes.  Some of those are because of hardware limitations,
but it is also likely that some are using lower screen resolutions because
the effective font sizes are larger (and more readable).

Of course if one chooses only scalable fonts (with the corresponding
performance degradation), this is irrelvant.

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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Michal Pronay]

Thomas Dickey wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote:
> 
>>050723 michael@michaelshiloh.com wrote:
>>
>>>LCD monitors are fixed-rate,
>>>so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like
>>>with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution
>>>and then display at a lower rate if you wish.
>>
>>Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best available ?
> 
> 
> to make the fonts look bigger.
> 

Sorry i missed the point. Why would you change the native resolution on
a LCD monitor to get bigger fonts, when you can change the font size to
a bigger one and leave the resolution native ? ;o)

M.
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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Walter Dnes]

On Sun, Jul 24, 2005 at 01:36:44AM -0400, Philip Webb wrote
> 050723 michael@michaelshiloh.com wrote:
> > LCD monitors are fixed-rate,
> > so you have to buy one that has the resolution you like
> > with CRT monitors where you buy the highest resolution
> > and then display at a lower rate if you wish.
> 
> Why would you want to display at lower resolution than the best
> available ?

  "Internet TV", or videos are one reason.  Do you want an animated
postage stamp in one corner of your 1280x1024 display?  Software scaling
imposes a heavy load on the cpu, so hardware scaling is preferable.  As
I mentioned in a previous message, attempting to interpolate partial
pixels hurts image quality.  E.g. going from 1280x1024 to 1024x768 or
800x600 or 640x480 is bad.

  However, you can retain picture quality if you divide the resolution
cleanly by whole integers.  E.g. a 1280x1024 display should be just as
good at 640x512 or 320x256.  Similarly a 1600x1200 LCD would do OK at
800x600 or 400x300.  "xrandr -q" is your friend.

> SUPPORT     ___________//___,  Philip Webb : purslow@chass.utoronto.ca
> ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|  Centre for Urban & Community Studies
> TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'  University of Toronto

  Hello from Vaughan, "The city above Toronto"<g>.

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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Bob Sanders]

On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 20:08:38 -0400
"Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:


>   "Internet TV", or videos are one reason.  Do you want an animated
> postage stamp in one corner of your 1280x1024 display?  Software scaling
> imposes a heavy load on the cpu, so hardware scaling is preferable.  As
> I mentioned in a previous message, attempting to interpolate partial
> pixels hurts image quality.  E.g. going from 1280x1024 to 1024x768 or
> 800x600 or 640x480 is bad.

But that is what the Gfx card is for, not the monitor.  The vast majority of LCD monitors
just don't have the ability to do decent scaling.  Gfx cards like Nvidia's 6200 and 6600
are getting there.  Ati, doesn't seem to do as well, the last time I looked.

The integrated VIA Unichrome series has been hampered by the older memory - the
new ones have upped the memory bus speed to 400 MHz DDR.

The XGI cards have some scaling, but the open source driver is lacking.

3DLabs doest some really nice scaling, but at $900 for the entry level, it's not
for everybody.  And their driver is still closed source, like Nvidia and ATI.

> 
>   However, you can retain picture quality if you divide the resolution
> cleanly by whole integers.  E.g. a 1280x1024 display should be just as
> good at 640x512 or 320x256.  Similarly a 1600x1200 LCD would do OK at
> 800x600 or 400x300.  "xrandr -q" is your friend.
> 

Yeah but it's a real pain if you prefer to work at higher resolutions, then have
to go mucking about with a resolution change.  Besides, all monitors need a different
color profile and brightness/contrast ratio to display video correctly.  If  this
isn't done, no amount of resolution mucking is going to present a decent
image.  

And I've seen very, very, few LCD monitors that produce the same color
temp across the surface.  The original Apple 20" was one of the worst offenders
in this regard.  The new 23" seems much better.

Bob
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Re: [gentoo-user] switching to LCD monitor

[Timo Boettcher]

Hi Philip,

* Philip Webb <purslow@sympatico.ca>, Thursday, July 21, 2005, 10:24:52 AM:

> I recall that when I installed Gentoo 031005 ,
> I had to copy manually the monitor lines from my previous box,
> which was running Mandrake, in order to get the monitor to work properly.
> Without a working screen, there's no way I could do that this time.

There actually is. Use some Live-cd, like knoppix...

 Timo

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