Configuring X to Run on VAIO Desktop LCD Screens?

I_redwolf asks: "I recently acquired a brand new PCV-L640 (Sony Vaio Slim Line Desktop) computer in my office; which comes with a 15.1 TFT LCD screen which I don't care for too much but what the hell you know? One of the first things I did was pop my favorite distribution of Linux into my CDROM and was on my way. I'm trying Red Hat 7 so I give Xconfigurator a spin to cut down or some time. Everything is detected fine except when I try to run X it says it can't find any screens. No biggie, probably my modelines or something. I then spend the rest of the day trying to get my LCD monitor to work with XFree86 v4.0.1a. I've tried every configuration possible but the closest I have gotten is a 320x200 screen with the VGA server and that only shows on half the screen. Where can I find information on setting up an LCD screen. Are there any tutorials/mini-howto's, inside tips, voodoo magic or sacrifices that I must make before getting this LCD to work?"

"My system is comprised of the following:

• Ati Rage Fury PR [8192 vram] (oddly it detects this exactly but there is a `|` between the Fury and the PR eg: Ati Rage Fury|PR)
• 15.5 TFT LCD Screen by Sony the exact model # I don't have right now.
• Coppermine 700
• 128 meg ram etc etc

All help is greatly appreciated."

Comments

NeoMagic chipset is proprietary, unsupported?

[BitMan]

I was under the impression that the NeoMagic chipset that Vaio's use was proprietary and supported. In the past, there were binary-only X-Servers. I'm unsure of what your current options are, but can only offer my experience.

Of the newer Vaio's I've seen with the NeoMagic chipset, you had to use the kernel framebuffer support and the FBDev X-Server to get working. I assume the same is true for XFree86 v4.0, you use the FBDev driver.

[ P.S. I also understand many NeoMagic chipsets, including those used in the Vaio, do not support Direct3D as well. ]

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith