Xandros3 and the Intel 845/855/865

The symptoms

I installed Xandros 3 on my Dell Inspiron 1100 with an i810 video driver.
The display is fine, however regardless of which monitor setting or display resolution that I use the display is approximately half the size that it should be.
A small square window appears perfectly centered in the exact center of my monitor instead of covering the entire monitor surface as it should. The monitor is a 14.1 inch (I believe) and the window size is probably about 7x7. The resolution and everything else is fine, but the window will not enlarge regardless of the changes made.

The solution The problem with the 845/855/865 video cards is that they use shared RAM, and the BIOS only preallocates 1 MB, which causes it to default to 640x480. The fix pre-allocates 8 megs in the kernel, which should be able to run reasonable resolutions.

Download the DEB directly and install with Xandros Networks

There are reports that this patch made it into the Service Pack 2 release.

However, please also see this post: http://forums.xandros.com/viewtopic.php?t=11623

In short, installing the 855 utility from Alain Poirier and setup your configuration file should let you use the higher resolutions of the chip. Below is an extract/adaptation:

... Next assuming you want to have the 1280x800 resolution each time you start X, you need to do the following:

Download http://perso.wanadoo.fr/apoirier/855resolution-0.4.tgz from http://perso.wanadoo.fr/apoirier/
After downloading it, find the file and untar it by right-clicking on the file in Xandros File Manager and selecting "Extract All".
We need to compile and install the program, so:

Open up a console,
Become root (type: "su" and the root password),
Navigate to the directory where the 855resolution file is (probably /home/myusername/855resolution),
And type 'make' and press Enter,
Then type make install' and press Enter.

It should work fine, this is what you shoud see:

dell700m:/home/ryan/855resolution# make
cc -s -Wall -DVERSION='"0.3"' -DPLUGINS='plugin1,plugin2' -DREF_PLUGINS='&plugin1,&plugin2'    -c -o 855resolution.o 855resolution.c
855resolution.c: In function `main':
855resolution.c:146: warning: implicit declaration of function `iopl'
cc -s -Wall -DVERSION='"0.3"' -DPLUGINS='plugin1,plugin2' -DREF_PLUGINS='&plugin1,&plugin2'    -c -o vbios.o vbios.c
cc -s -Wall -DVERSION='"0.3"' -DPLUGINS='plugin1,plugin2' -DREF_PLUGINS='&plugin1,&plugin2'    -c -o plugins/plugin1.o plugins/plugin1.c
cc -s -Wall -DVERSION='"0.3"' -DPLUGINS='plugin1,plugin2' -DREF_PLUGINS='&plugin1,&plugin2'    -c -o plugins/plugin2.o plugins/plugin2.c
cc   855resolution.o vbios.o plugins/plugin1.o plugins/plugin2.o   -o 855resolution

dell700m:/home/ryan/855resolution# make install
cp 855resolution /usr/sbin

Now the program is executable and located in /usr/bin/855resolution

Copy the following file and save it as anything you want (I saved it as "855_intel_bootfix") in etc/init.d/ directory.

################################################################################
##  AUTOMATICALLY loads fix for WXGA 1280x800, Intel 855 video chipset
##  I got my WXGA 1280x800 working on little Dell 700m by using the instructions here:
##  http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mmastran/fedora-core-2/index.html
##  http://www.desktop-linux.net/debian-rclocal.htm
## Thanks to the above people who provided the info
################################################################################
#! /bin/sh
runlevel=`runlevel | cut -f2 -d' '`
# Xandros typically runs at runlevel 2
[ 2 -eq $runlevel ] && /usr/sbin/855resolution 34 1280 800
[ 3 -eq $runlevel ] && /usr/sbin/855resolution 34 1280 800
[ 5 -eq $runlevel ] && /usr/sbin/855resolution 34 1280 800

Then run the following commands as root on a console:

chmod +x /etc/init.d/855_intel_bootfix
# Don't forget the final period on this next command!
update-rc.d 855_intel_bootfix start 80 2 3 4 5 .

this is what you'll see:

dell700m:/home/ryan/855resolution# chmod +x /etc/init.d/855_intel_bootfix
dell700m:/home/ryan/855resolution# update-rc.d 855_intel_bootfix start 80 2 3 45 .
Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/855_intel_bootfix ...
  /etc/rc2.d/S80855_intel_bootfix -> ../init.d/855_intel_bootfix
  /etc/rc3.d/S80855_intel_bootfix -> ../init.d/855_intel_bootfix
  /etc/rc4.d/S80855_intel_bootfix -> ../init.d/855_intel_bootfix
  /etc/rc5.d/S80855_intel_bootfix -> ../init.d/855_intel_bootfix

That should be it! You should be at 1280x800 resolution at each boot. The resolution won't be displayed in the Control Center, and you'll overwrite this fix if you change the resolution there. So leave it alone if you wanna keep it.

RK got all his info from these links:

Xandros3AndIntel845Video

Xandros3 and the Intel 845/855/865