Three mixed-bag questions

[gjansky]

I have three, mixed-bag hardware questions; two specific and one generic. I have a Compaq Armada 7400 laptop, and it's pretty neat for what I'll do with it (mostly surf the web, minor office work, teach myself some new languages.) I installed RH 9.0 without any major problems, and RH runs pretty good on it. My questions are as follows:

1. Before I trashed the win OS, I took a look at the hardware properties. The sound card was listed as an ESS ES1879 Audio Drive, at least that's what windows called it. When I ran sndconfig, I couldn't pick the ES1879 from the list. There really wasn't anything close; and I couldn't get any of the ESS drivers to work. I got it to "work" with the "soundblaster" driver, but it doesn't sound right. It doesn't sound like I'm getting stereo out of the speakers. Is there another driver I should use?
2. Video question. X runs great, the only problem is I can only use 800x600. Before I trashed windows, the screen was in 1024 mode. I've looked at my XFree86 file, and the only values in the screen section are 800x600 and 480. When I type in 1024x768, the screen still will not display at that resolution. I notice that Depth = 24, should that be changed?
3. Finally, the battery is dead in the laptop, meaning I can only use the laptop plugged in. I'm pretty sure this battery won't take a charge, and I'll need a new battery. My question deals with laptops in general. If I get a new battery, and use the laptop unplugged, should the battery recharge when the laptop is plugged in?

Thoughts?

Thanks for any answers on one, two or all of the questions.

[pbharris]

Hello,
Q1 - Use ALSA for sound drivers - that chipset details are here:
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc...;module=es18xx

Q2 - is redaht-config-xfree86 saying that it can only do 800x600 ? for mine i am able to select "Generic Laptop Display that can do 1024x768

Q2 - Yes

[Schotty]

Thats odd. I had a few boxes at my old job that used ess1879s just fine. Trust me, Red Hat 7.2/7.3 and up support it fine. If the support is that old, any distro should have it. I believe that its in the kernel.

As for your res, try going from 24 bit to 16. The max res is calculated based off of your video ram. Its something like :

V-Size * H-Size * Bpp = Ram needed. Give or take. So my reccomendation is just to drop to 16bpp and use 1024x768 or 1280x1024.

Batteries ... hmm. Not a laptop user, so ... Try (assuming you live in the States) batteries plus. They have just about everything. Operated by Sears btw.

[trickster]

1. I'm pretty sure that card uses the sounblaster driver.
2. What video card does it has? I'm running 1024*768*24. this is what my XFree86Config section looks like:

# Any number of screen sections may be present.  Each describes
# the configuration of a single screen.  A single specific screen section
# may be specified from the X server command line with the "-screen"
# option.
Section "Screen"
    Identifier  "Screen 1"
    Device      "VESA Framebuffer"
    Monitor     "My Monitor"

# If your card can handle it, a higher default color depth (like 24 or 32)
# is highly recommended.

#   DefaultDepth 8
#   DefaultDepth 16
   DefaultDepth 24
#   DefaultDepth 32

# "1024x768" is also a conservative usable default resolution.  If you
# have a better monitor, feel free to try resolutions such as
# "1152x864", "1280x1024", "1600x1200", and "1800x1400" (or whatever your
# card/monitor can produce)

    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       8
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubsection
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes "1600*1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    Subsection "Display"
        Depth       32
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubsection

EndSection

3. It should work as long as you have APM or ACPI enabled on your system.

HTH

[Tyr_7BE]

Under the screen options in your /etc/X11/XF86Config file, make sure that "1024x768" comes FIRST in the list of screen resolutions under your default depth. For example, if your Default Depth is 16,

Subsection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"