VESA Driver Doesn't Support Widescreen Modes

Note: With vesa default resolution of 1024 by 768, everything looks stretched out. I have no option to use anything better with this driver.

Please don't confirm your own bugs (that would make the point of "confirmation" useless), In this case I can confirm this, so I leave it confirmed. Don't assign bugs to other people. See the wiki for more information about triaging bugs.

Sorry, I didn't know. I figured if it gave me the option to do it (permissions) then I was supposed to fill in all I could to get it fixed/done asap... my bad.

Bugs can be set as confirmed if another user can replicate it or the bug is confirmed upstream.

Correct. The vesa driver only supports vesa modes - these don't include widescreen modes.

So are you saying that it will not be implemented? If you have a widescreen laptop monitor, you are just screwed? I am not trying to be rude, I am just not sure that I am understanding? Will widescreen be available using the Ubuntu Live CD or will this just always be unavailable? Will we just have to deal with a stretched out screen? If you don't have internet, you can't download a restricted driver... Maybe I am just missing something...? Please advise. Thank you.

I was able to verify this bug/problem by multiple sources before posting this bug report. It is not only listed on multiple bug reports already, but everyone that I know has complained to me about this very same problem. I also have tried it on multiple notebooks and desktops.

The solution is to hope avivo-driver matures so you don't need vesa (or fglrx).

VESA (the standard, not just the driver) was designed for 4/3 screens, there's nothing you can do about it. Or maybe there is; see if the BIOS has some setting where you can tell it not to fill the screen, but keep a sane aspect ratio.

Anyway, closing.

I think it is a valid wishlist item, although more appropriate for upstream. Future VESA standards/extensions may have support for widescreen modes, and I am not sure it's technically impossible to make a vesa-compliant driver that can do this (without becoming a card-specific driver).

One improvement would be if the image could be (optionally) centered and not stretched. Another one is to document this so that users understand the issue and that it is a problem due to the lack of open-source drivers for their card. Maybe even an annoying pop-up that says "Your displays native resolution can not be used by the vesa driver. Hard luck".

brokencrystal, have you tried the xserver-xorg-video-avivo driver for X1?00 cards? It won't be on the Gutsy live CD, but hopefully on the next.

(Didn't see Timo's posting before I posted mine. What he said.)

Also see recent AMD news about an upcoming new driver that sounds like it'll be the right fit for this driver. I've heard some good about the -avivo driver, but presumably it will be either deprecated or folded into this new driver.

I agree with Tormod and Timo - widescreen for -vesa is not really in the cards.

Bug #106395 is related but is NOT A DUPLICATE.

I reported a bug in xresprobe which does not detect wide screens and so does not genereate the expected settings for the ATI driver. This is different from using the VESA driver.

I disagree with the recent status change of this bug : Won't fix => Invalid.

This bug is valid: it is true that the VESA driver doesn't support wide screens.
See this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_display_identification_data#Limitations

So the status go back to "Won't fix".