Isaac & Young Computer Company

Here's what works on our product (YMMV):

Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf as root:

Delete the "Monitor" section and replace with:

Section "Monitor"
# Block type: 2:0 3:fd
# Block type: 2:0 3:ff
# Block type: 2:0 3:fc
Identifier "AL1917W"
VendorName "ACR"
ModelName "AL1917W"
# Block type: 2:0 3:fd
HorizSync 31-84
VertRefresh 56-76
# Max dot clock (video bandwidth) 140 MHz
# Block type: 2:0 3:ff
# Block type: 2:0 3:fc
# DPMS capabilities: Active off:yes Suspend:yes Standby:yes

Mode "1440x900" # vfreq 60.070Hz, hfreq 55.625kHz
DotClock 89.000000
HTimings 1440 1488 1520 1600
VTimings 900 903 909 926
Flags "+HSync" "+VSync"
EndMode
# Block type: 2:0 3:fd
# Block type: 2:0 3:ff
# Block type: 2:0 3:fc
EndSection

In your Screens section , change the Monitor line to:

Monitor "AL1917W"

If the Screens section has a Display subsection, remove that subsection.

Add the following subsection to the Screens section:

SubSection "Display"
Modes "1440x900"
EndSubSection
Save the file and restart X.

You may have to experiment with the DefaultDepth setting. If you graphics card has enough memory, 24 will give you the best color. However, keeping 1440 x 900 (1,296,000) pixels lit up at 24 bits per pixel, 60 times a second is a lot of work for a graphics card. If you don't get good results at 24 bit depth, try backing it off to 16 and see what you get. (I have an old ATI Mach64 card in one of my machines, so I have to reduce the depth to 8 to get it to work.)

It is possible that your particular version of the AL1917W (there have been several versions manufactured) is engineered slightly different than the ones we are shipping. If the above doesn't work, you'll can do some command-line recognizance to get the info you need. Because the AL1917W has a solid implementation of EDID, you can run the utilities in the read-edid package to write your xorg.conf Monitor section for you.

Run the following as root from the console:

root@hostname.dom:~/# get-edid | parse-edid >> /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Then edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to remove any conflicting Monitor sections, and otherwise conform the rest of the file to the output of the section that parse-edid wrote for you.

Just for the sake of completeness, if you run the framebuffer in the console, the following Mode section of /etc/fb.modes (provided by the fbset package) works for this monitor:

mode "1440x900-60"
# D: 89 MHz, H: 55.62 kHz V: 60.07 Hz
geometry 1440 900 1440 900 24
timings 11236 80 48 17 3 32 6
hsync high
vsync high
accel true
endmode
Add the foregoing to the end of /etc/fb.modes and save it. Then issue from the command line, as root:

root@hostname.dom:~/$ fbset "1440x900-60"

You will note that "24" is at the end of the geometry line. That number is the depth parameter for the framebuffer. As when dealing with the X server, you may have to adjust that parameter down to 16 or even 8 when running off of some older graphics cards.

Also, changing "accel true" to "accel false" will sometimes give better results, depending on your graphics card.

Happy Trails,

Loye Young
Isaac & Young Computer Company
Laredo, Texas