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I just got a Samsung SyncMaster T260HD monitor. It works straight out of the box with Windows but I can't seem to get it to work with Linux, which is my primary OS for day to day work.

The computer boots up but when going into graphical mode on Linux the monitor gives me a "Mode not supported" error and doesn't display anything.

I booted up windows and, using PowerStrip, grabbed the exact ModeLine that should be used to get the equivalent setting in Linux and added it to my xorg config file but it doesn't seem to help. the ModeLine is:

ModeLine "1920x1200" 153.9 1920 1984 2016 2080 1200 1203 1209 1235 +hsync -vsync

This is the modeline for the working display settings in windows but it doesn't seem to work in Linux My complete entry in the xorg.conf file for the monitor is

    Section "Monitor"
            Identifier   "Monitor0"
            ModelName    "SyncMaster"
            DisplaySize  518        324
            HorizSync    30.0 - 81.0
            VertRefresh  56.0 - 75.0
            Option      "dpms"
            ModeLine     "1920x1200" 153.9 1920 1984 2016 2080 1200 1203 1209 1235 +hsync -vsync

EndSection

I'm running Scientific Linux 5.4 (clone of Redhat Enterprise Linux 5.4) but I've tried booting with a recent Linux Mint Distro as well as Ubuntu 9.04 and had the same problem. Any suggestions on other things I should try or might be missing? If anyone's gotten this to work I'd love to know. Thanks.

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  • I remember I had the exact same problem with my T260 monitor and Ubuntu 9.04. I'm sorry, i don't remember the fix, but I know I did get it to work. I eventually thought it was too big and got a T240 instead, which is why i can't help you now.
    – Roy Rico
    Commented Feb 22, 2010 at 18:00
  • At least I know it's possible. :) But right now I'm stumped.
    – dagorym
    Commented Feb 22, 2010 at 18:07

1 Answer 1

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Okay, the one thing I hadn't tried worked.

I was using the default open source nv driver. I installed the proprietary nvidia drivers and using the nvidia-settings tool, was able to properly configure the monitor and get it working.

In the X Server Display Configuration item you have the choice of separate x screens or TwinView. I'm looking to just use the T260HD as my single monitor so I set the configuration for the T260HD to "Separate X screen" and disabled the built in screen. If I hadn't disabled the built in screen, I got two separate screens that my mouse would move between (i.e. like extending the screen to the second monitor in windows) but with my laptop lid closed that didn't work :).

Hopefully this helps anyone else with the same issue. I'll updated as needed for any questions in comments.

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    Well if I would have noticed the topic, this is the very first thing what one should do if he got a NVidia card. If its an ATI, he should uninstall linux. :)
    – Apache
    Commented Jun 10, 2010 at 7:09
  • @Shiki The nVidia Linux drivers are pretty good so as far as I can remember and from what I can tell it's only the open-source purists who really use the open source drivers as they don't trust Big Companies not to be spying on them. As to the ATI drivers I've been told that they have improved since I last tried them (~6-8 months ago) but they were practically unusable on Ubuntu 9.04.
    – Mokubai ♦
    Commented Jun 10, 2010 at 7:24
  • @Mokubai - Yeah they improved but they are still far from usable. I would simply drop all the support and open-source the driver. Drop the open source ones, merge them, split to two parts. Legacy and current. And that would do the job I guess.
    – Apache
    Commented Jun 10, 2010 at 8:14

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