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From: Bill Marshal on 16 Jan 2006 23:52

I was in Frys this weekend and they had a stack of panoramic monitors on
sale for a good price. The display model was as sharp as I have ever seen
and about a yard wide. Not really - it was probably about 30 inches
horizontal and of course it was showing that other OS from the northwest
US - I forget its name.

I probably would have bought one, but I got to wondering if it could be
supported with Linux yet. And once I had left, I realised that I forgot
to check on what kind of video hardware was used. I assume that the usual
run of cards can't display the mode required. It would be something like
4096 x 1024

Anybody got any experience with them? Or know just what driver and card
could be used?

Bill
From: Bill Marshal on 16 Jan 2006 18:00
> run of cards can't display the mode required. It would be something like
> 4096 x 1024
>

Well, that was a typo. I meant something closer to 16:9, like 1820 x 1024

Bill

From: Måns Rullgård on 17 Jan 2006 04:07
Bill Marshal <marshxxxx(a)overton.com> writes:

>> run of cards can't display the mode required. It would be something like
>> 4096 x 1024
>>
>
> Well, that was a typo. I meant something closer to 16:9, like 1820 x 1024

My monitor is running at 1680x1050 using a cheap nvidia card.
Monitors rarely cause problems under Linux as long as you have a
supported graphics card.

--
M?ns Rullg?rd
mru(a)inprovide.com
From: John-Paul Stewart on 17 Jan 2006 11:24
Bill Marshal wrote:
>>run of cards can't display the mode required. It would be something like
>>4096 x 1024
>>
>
>
> Well, that was a typo. I meant something closer to 16:9, like 1820 x 1024

There are lots of cards that support 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratios. I
know most ATI cards will do 1920x1200 (16:10) with no trouble.
Presumably other brands do, too. It's quite common. Lower resolutions
at 16:9 and 16:10 are even more commonly supported by the card makers.

Some of the highest resolution monitors (Apple and Dell both offer 30
inch units) run at 2560x1600 which requires a graphics card that
supports a "DualLink" DVI interface. You've got to check card specs
carefully but ATI and nVidia offer suitable cards which work with those
companies' proprietary drivers.

The final category of monitor are those that are more-or-less just HDTV
sets to which a computer has been plugged in. If it's over 30 inches
diagonally, that's probably what you're looking at. Surprisingly, these
are often fairly low resolution devices. 1366x768 is common resolution
for such units. (Viewsonic's 40 inch and 42 inch displays are one
example.) That's a much lower resolution, and hence more broadly supported.

The only potential catch is that you *might* need to create a custom
modeline in your X config file for unusual resolutions.
From: Måns Rullgård on 17 Jan 2006 13:47
John-Paul Stewart <jpstewart(a)binaryfoundry.ca> writes:

> Bill Marshal wrote:
>>>run of cards can't display the mode required. It would be something like
>>>4096 x 1024
>>>
>> Well, that was a typo. I meant something closer to 16:9, like 1820 x
>> 1024
>
> There are lots of cards that support 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratios. I
> know most ATI cards will do 1920x1200 (16:10) with no
> trouble. Presumably other brands do, too. It's quite common. Lower
> resolutions at 16:9 and 16:10 are even more commonly supported by the
> card makers.

I had to check several cards before I found a card that supported
1680x1050 DVI output. Many are limited to 1600x1200 on the DVI port,
but will go higher on the VGA port. I was looking at rather low-end,
fanless cards. The more expensive models may well support higher
resolutions to a greater extent.

> The final category of monitor are those that are more-or-less just
> HDTV sets to which a computer has been plugged in. If it's over 30
> inches diagonally, that's probably what you're looking at.
> Surprisingly, these are often fairly low resolution devices. 1366x768
> is common resolution for such units. (Viewsonic's 40 inch and 42 inch
> displays are one example.) That's a much lower resolution, and hence
> more broadly supported.

It remains a mystery why they use 1366x768 on many HDTV displays. The
native HDTV resolutions are 1280x720 and 1920x1080. That scaling can
never be good for picture quality.

> The only potential catch is that you *might* need to create a custom
> modeline in your X config file for unusual resolutions.

I had to do just that for my 1680x1050 monitor. For some reason, the
nvidia driver rejected the mode reported by the monitor, but it was
fine when I entered the same timings as a modeline in the X config
file.

--
M?ns Rullg?rd
mru(a)inprovide.com
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