Patched bios, installed driver, no widescreen?

[needwidescreen]

I just set up an old computer and found out it doesn't support widescreen. I have a 16x9 monitor that should have a resolution of 1360x768. The motherboard in Asrock G Pro the integrated video is an SiS 650.

I flashed the BIOS with the patched BIOS for the G Pro and installed the UniVGA3 3.73 driver. The max resolution shown is 1024x768 with no widescreen resolutions (not even 16:10 resolutions).

What do I need to do?

[needwidescreen]

So I uninstalled the driver and now I see 1440x900 which is 16:10 and higher than my monitor supports. How can I get my monitors optimal resolution of 1360x768 (16:9) or at least 1280x720 (16:10)?

[cp]

1440x900 is the only resolution supported with a recent video BIOS. it's not that any of the SiS chips couldn't handle any other resolution. it's just that SiS really messed it up in their Windows driver (proof: there is a 3rd party linux driver which can set virtually any resolution with all available SiS chipsets. and yes: even SiS' vga chipsets include a programmable pll that has been in any vga chip since ages!)
so if you want to use the native panel resolution do one of the following:

1. Install Linux and use the 3rd party driver
2. Buy a vga card without SiS chipset and use that in your system
3. replace the mainboard with one without SiS integrated vga

or (this would help a lot!) disassemble the video BIOS and find out how to add custom modelines to the video BIOS. or even better: rewrite/patch the SiS Windows driver to support any resolution!

[needwidescreen]

I can't stand not using my full screen of having it stretched. I'm familiar with Linux, I've been an Ubuntu user for quite a while. The problem is that Ubuntu has become extremely bloated for a single core Pentium 4 1.8GHz 1.5GB RAM computer. What distribution would you recommend and what is the third party driver I need to use?

[edwin]

Can be you just need to change out your window manager/desktop:
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20081 ... sktop.html

otherwise, do a search for lean linux or similar, there are many out there and many people using them.

[needwidescreen]

Yeah I just installed Ubuntu 10.10 and it just worked. 1360x768 was being used upon loading my desktop. Now time to do a little un-bloating.

[cp]

if you want a lean, small and fast linux use Debian or Gentoo. with Debian you should use the 'unstable' repositories.