Increasing screen resolution

[ranc1d]

Hi,

I have just installed Ubuntu 9.10 on a PC with a Nvidia graphics card (unfortunately I do not know the model of the card - I "inherited" this PC).

The installation was a success but the maximum screen resolution is 800 x 600 and I'm not able to increase it further.

I'm suspecting that the card hasn't been detected or the relevant driver is not installed.

Is there any way of increasing the resolution?
How should I go about installing the driver?
Also, as I do not know the model of the Nvidia card, is there a "general" one that I can use?

Apologies if my questions sound stupid as I'm a newbie in this.

Thanks in advance.

[realzippy]

To install nvidia-driver:

System/administration/restricted drivers

[ranc1d]

Hi realzippy,

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not able to find that option in 9.10.

Do I need to activate anything ?

[realzippy]

so maybe its an old nvidia card.You should know the model to get a driver.Open a terminal,type:
sudo apt-get install sysinfo

After sysinfo installed,type sysinfo to start the app.

[ranc1d]

Hi realzippy,

Thanks for the help !

I can now see the card model. It's :

nVidia Corporation NV5M64 [RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro] (rev15)
Subsystem : nVidia Corporation Device 0006

So I guess the next step is to download the relevant driver, right?

Would you also be so kind as to provide the steps as to how I can install the driver once I've downloaded it?

Thanks !

[ranc1d]

ok.. some updates...

1) managed to download NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11-pkg1.run
2) successfully installed the above

But when I go to System->Preferences->Display, I get the popup :

It appears that your graphics driver does not support the necessary extensions to use this tool. Do you want to use your graphics driver vendor's too instead?

Clicking 'Yes' will bring up the 'NVIDIA X Server Settings' with some options checked. The left side of this popup has the title 'nividia-settings Configuration' but that's it.

Clicking 'No' will bring me to the 'Display Preferences' popup whereby the maximum screen resolution is still 800 x 600 (which was what I was trying to increase in the first place).

I have checked the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and there's nothing inside.

What else do I have to do?

Thanks

[njsharp]

ranc1d, you and I seem to be at precisely the same point. The GUI brought up by YES is a tiny fraction of what I was expecting from experience of modern NVIDIA card linux drivers:

eg http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarotoast/1461847980/

Incidentally, you can also launch it at Applications/System tools/NVIDIA X Server Settings though you may need first to right click on Applications/Edit Menus, then click on System Tools then tick the NVIDIA box. It's the same as what you have seen already, but IF we get this doing ALL the things it should, the above is a quicker way to the NVIDIA GUI.

Hard work this bit.

[njsharp]

Oh, and also, try this in a root terminal:

root@u910i386:/home/nick# nvidia-settings

ERROR: NV-CONTROL extension not found on this Display.


The (nearly useless) GUI comes up, but note the error message.

[njsharp]

New research: AFAIK, nvidia-glx-71 DID still exist in 9.04 but has been dropped in 9.10 and I think on one web page I saw it has been "obsoleted by nvidia-glx-96". But surely, it hasn't?! There is no support for RIVA TNT in '96 is there?

So I am reinstalling 9.04 and plan to download nvidia-glx-71 on that. My previous build on the PC in question was 9.04 but on a voodoo card, so I have no previous experience with the TNT on that.

Watch this space!

If it all works fully, then we should call for '71 to be put back in 9.10 I think?

[ranc1d]

Hi njsharp,

Thanks for your reply.

More updates of what I've done.

1) reinstalled using 9.04 (trashed 9.10)
2) installed NVIDIA-Linux-x86-71.86.11-pkg1.run successfully
3) installed Envyng

From Envyng, I can see that the "NVIDIA 71.86.08-0ubuntu1" is ticked so I guess this is the driver that's currently in use. However, I do see the following also but they are not "Compatible" and "Recommended" :
- 180.44-0ubuntu1
- 173.14.16-0ubuntu1
- 96.43.10-0ubuntu1

Going to System -> Preferences -> Display, I'm still seeing the maximum resolution as 800 x 600.

I tried enabling the "71.86.08" version in Envyng, and after rebooting, the system couldn't even start complaining of graphics incompatibility and had to use the default configuration to continue the boot up.

I think there's compatibility issues or the card is not supported.

It's hard getting the graphics card to work.