[solved] Screen resolution on Toshiba Satellite C660D-15D

[Onsemeliot]

I was able to install Debian Buster with LXDE on a Toshiba Satellite C660D-15D and could even get the wireless working after enabling the non-free repository.

But I got stuck on the screen resolution. So far I am unable to use the often recommended xrandr tool to add the resolution I need. The command doesn't seem to be even availabe when using LXDE. But I discovered that instead lxrandr is present. But this seems to be a graphical tool that just starts the GUI tool which doesn't allow me to add the native screen resolution of the device (1366 x 768) instead of 1024 x 768.

What do I get wrong here?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

What is the graphics hardware & driver? Does it need non-free firmware?

The xrandr command is provided by the x11-server-utils package:

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# apt install apt-file
apt-file search /usr/bin/xrandr

[Onsemeliot]

Thank you for your quick answer.

The non-free repository was at least necessary for the wireless. (But so far every second boot the wireless is missing again. I don't know what to make of this. Maybe my configuration is less than ideal in that aspect too. During the initial setup Debians installer told me that the missing firmware was: "rtlwifi/rtl8192cfw.bin". This is why I added the non-free repository.)

Concerning the hardware:

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$ lspci | grep VGA
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250]

$ lshw -C video
  *-display UNCLAIMED       
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250]
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       physical id: 5
       bus info: pci@0000:01:05.0
       version: 00
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:c0000000-cfffffff ioport:e000(size=256) memory:ff500000-ff50ffff memory:ff400000-ff4fffff memory:c0000-dffff

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Use the -k switch for lspci(8) to show the status of the kernel drivers. Have you installed the firmware-amd-graphics package? As per the Debian wiki AMD page.

[Onsemeliot]

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# lspci -k | grep VGA
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250]

I only (unsuccessfully) tried using the xrandr command to add the resolution manually. I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to with "Debian wiki AMD page". Is this the guide you mean? I don't feel really up to the task because of the warning on that page and it seems my hardware is different from what the driver download page seems to be for.

I found a download page for the card lspci has identified: GNU/Linux driver for my card but there is a remark stating: "Automated installer and Display Drivers for Xorg 6.9 to Xserver 1.12 and Kernel version up to 3.4". And to my knowledge Buster uses kernel 4.19. So it doesn't seem to be what I need. Or do I get that wrong?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Code: Select all

# lspci -k | grep VGA
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250]

The lines we want are beneath that one so either modify your grep command or view the output without it.

I only (unsuccessfully) tried using the xrandr command to add the resolution manually.

If you actually post what you tried along with any error messages then we could probably help you with that.

I'm not sure what exactly you are referring to with "Debian wiki AMD page". Is this the guide you mean?

Good grief, no. The proprietary AMD drivers are only intended for their PRO series video cards and they're tricky to get working with Debian anyway.

The page I meant comes up as the first result if you enter "Debian wiki AMD" into a search engine: https://wiki.debian.org/AtiHowTo

And I ask again:

Have you installed the firmware-amd-graphics package?

^ That will probably fix things. We've had about 2.7 million threads on these boards about this exact same subject, strange that you didn't find any of them when you searched before starting this thread...

[Onsemeliot]

Sorry, I seemingly didn't try hard enough to find what I was needing. I guess I shouldn't have used the laptop model name in my search but the name of the graphics card I eventually found using lspci. I suspect this is partially because I wasn't sure if this was actually the name of the hardware or just of the (probably wrong) drivers used. I obviously still miss basic knowledge.

Concerning the "firmware-amd-graphics" package I made the wrong assumption. I didn't understand that this was the actual name of the package I should install and I thought you meant just the proprietary AMD drivers for my hardware that can be downloaded from the AMD web page. But I installed it now and it instantly worked.

Thank you very much for your patience.