I have a curious problem, one that is very difficult to Google and maybe the first Linux issue in years I haven't been able to fix myself without a bit of searching and tinkering.
Really there are 2 separate problems here.
This computer is now used for watching movies, so has a TV and external monitor attached, with the screens cloned.
Issue 1
If I use Nouveau, GDM crashes. It started with Gnome3 (F15 I think?), so I switched to XFCE. Since GDM got a Gnome3-like overhaul (F17), now that goes down too, that ever helpful "Something has gone wrong" message.
Gnome3 has never worked with Nouveau on my laptop. I'm assuming Nouveau has a bug or doesn't support the graphical acceleration techniques required by Gnome3.
The reason I was using Nouveau - other than Free software fanaticism - is that the TV detection is flawless. The picture is perfect. It looks great.
Issue 2
So now I'm using the official Nvidia drivers (akmod way), so GDM/Gnome3 work (actually I'm using Cinammon, not that it matters, all work with the official Nvidia driver and none work with Nouveau).
However, the TV detection for Nvidia gives me this awful shimmering image, which is difficult to describe. Colour boundaries fray, kind of like an oily puddle, but shimmering. For example, text (especially subtitles) shimmers terribly. It's uncomfortable to look at in general.
I've got an xorg.conf set up. I've got the TVStandard option as PAL-I, which is the standard here in the UK. It
could be that the TV is not UK-bought (we got it 2nd hand) but I'd rather not go through the entire list of TV Standards to find that out. Is there a way to probe this?
I've tried the modeline that is detected by Nouveau (shown in the Xorg logs) but I could be doing it wrong - Xorg configuration seems to be a voodoo art. I don't see what, in this xorg.conf, influences Xorg to pick up the Monitor section relevant to the TV.
Code:
# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 295.53 (mockbuild@builder1.ovh.rpmfusion.lan) Tue May 22 21:19:22 CEST 2012
# RPM Fusion - nvidia-xorg.conf
#
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
Option "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from data in "/etc/sysconfig/keyboard"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbLayout" "gb"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0" #CRT
ModelName "CRT-0"
HorizSync 28.0 - 55.0
VertRefresh 43.0 - 72.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Television0" #TV
ModelName "TV-0"
# Modeline as detected by Nouveau
Modeline "1024x768" 54.16 1024 1064 1200 1344 768 768 777 806 -hsync -vsync
Option "TVStandard" "PAL-I"
Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce Go 7300"
Option "NoLogo" "true"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "true"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT, TV"
Option "TVStandard" "PAL-I"
Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "TwinView" "1"
Option "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "TV-0"
Option "metamodes" "CRT: 1024x768_60 +0+0, TV: 1024x768 +0+0"
Option "TVStandard" "PAL-I"
Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection
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I know I'm not giving the most helpful information - yet. I'm open to providing whatever information could be used to diagnose either problem.
What makes me wish I could get the Nvidia driver to have a nice TV output (as opposed to fixing Nouveau) is that I have a son who likes his video games (don't they all!) so I like the fact that 3D games work (or work better). With Nouveau a lot of them just don't run at all, however solid TV out is the priority.
Linear Mode
