HOWTO.txt 2.1 KB

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  1. In the good old days when graphics parameters were configured explicitly
  2. in a file called xorg.conf, even broken hardware could be managed.
  3. Today, with the advent of Kernel Mode Setting, a graphics board is
  4. either correctly working because all components follow the standards -
  5. or the computer is unusable, because the screen remains dark after
  6. booting or it displays the wrong area. Cases when this happens are:
  7. - The graphics board does not recognize the monitor.
  8. - The graphics board is unable to detect any EDID data.
  9. - The graphics board incorrectly forwards EDID data to the driver.
  10. - The monitor sends no or bogus EDID data.
  11. - A KVM sends its own EDID data instead of querying the connected monitor.
  12. Adding the kernel parameter "nomodeset" helps in most cases, but causes
  13. restrictions later on.
  14. As a remedy for such situations, the kernel configuration item
  15. CONFIG_DRM_LOAD_EDID_FIRMWARE was introduced. It allows to provide an
  16. individually prepared or corrected EDID data set in the /lib/firmware
  17. directory from where it is loaded via the firmware interface. The code
  18. (see drivers/gpu/drm/drm_edid_load.c) contains built-in data sets for
  19. commonly used screen resolutions (1024x768, 1280x1024, 1680x1050,
  20. 1920x1080) as binary blobs, but the kernel source tree does not contain
  21. code to create these data. In order to elucidate the origin of the
  22. built-in binary EDID blobs and to facilitate the creation of individual
  23. data for a specific misbehaving monitor, commented sources and a
  24. Makefile environment are given here.
  25. To create binary EDID and C source code files from the existing data
  26. material, simply type "make".
  27. If you want to create your own EDID file, copy the file 1024x768.S and
  28. replace the settings with your own data. The CRC value in the last line
  29. #define CRC 0x55
  30. is a bit tricky. After a first version of the binary data set is
  31. created, it must be be checked with the "edid-decode" utility which will
  32. most probably complain about a wrong CRC. Fortunately, the utility also
  33. displays the correct CRC which must then be inserted into the source
  34. file. After the make procedure is repeated, the EDID data set is ready
  35. to be used.