Inspiron 1501 vga mode for 1280x800 console?

[treblemaker]

Installing 8.04 on Dell Inspiron 1501 with 1280x800 display, ATI graphics.

If I give *any* value for "vga=0x###" on the kernel boot command line (at least, any that I have tried so far), I get one of two things happening:

1) blank screen until X starts

or

2) mode is rejected as "invalid" and I'm left with an 80x25 console


This problem appears to be specific to the Dell Inspiron 1501. So please, understand that general solutions such as "use 'vga=ask'", or "vga=791" will not address this issue -- already tried. And my google-fu appears to be weak, today.


Are there any video modes that will work on this laptop other than 80-column modes? I'd love to be able to have, for example, a 128x50 console! But the kernel and Inspiron are conspiring against me.

Thanks and Best Regards,
T.

[treblemaker]

Just wanted to add that this laptop is using the ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 (X1150) graphics chipset.

Is there any tool I can run that will tell me what graphics modes are supported at boot time? "vga=ask" only gives me 80x## options, and with 1280x800 to work with I should be able to get at least 128x50!

Thanks and Best Regards,
T.

[treblemaker]

In case anyone comes here looking for help on the same problem, I finally found this post, which shows how to use "hwinfo" to get a list of the supported video modes.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...Xpress+console

Best Regards,
T.