I am having a problem with a couple Dell servers and SLES 11 SP2. The servers are Dell 1950s and when I upgrade or install fresh SLES 11 SP2 on these, the video when viewed through the DRAC card or via VNC is pixelated or washed out. It is very hard to distinguish characters. The screen looks like it is set to a low # of colors but SLES says it is set to 16 million colors. I’ve tried changing the parameters of the Graphics adapter and the # of colors but that doesn’t seem to help.
This was not an issue with earlier versions of SLES. What am I missing?
the video when viewed through the DRAC card or via VNC is pixelated or washed out
isn’t VNC access using your local X server (or “graphics engine” in general, if i.e. using MS Windows as a client platform)? So tuning the X server at the remote end would have no effect… you’d need to look at the local settings then.
I’m using a browser on a Windows 7 WS going to the IP address of the server and port 5801 for VNC. So isn’t that using the graphics engine on the Linux server?
I don’t see this problem when looking at another SLES 11 SP2 OS running on another Dell server. That is why I thought there was some setting on the SLES server that was causing the problem.
[QUOTE=dchunt;16751]I’m using a browser on a Windows 7 WS going to the IP address of the server and port 5801 for VNC. So isn’t that using the graphics engine on the Linux server?
I don’t see this problem when looking at another SLES 11 SP2 OS running on another Dell server. That is why I thought there was some setting on the SLES server that was causing the problem.
Dan[/QUOTE]
you may be right that it’s some setting on the SLES server side causing the problems - what caught my eye was " I’ve tried changing the parameters of the Graphics adapter" which I read as “graphics adapter of the SLES server”, while I believe that the server’s graphics adapter has no part in this play. But especially that you have proper video with another SLES server while using the same client, backs up the idea of a server-side thing.
Can you somehow see that both “sessions” (normal/blurry SLES server) use the same display resolution? “washed out” characters might be caused by some mis-match of parameters, requiring rescaling on the client side with corresponding effects.
I have not yet used MS Windows browsers to run VNC - might you try i.e. TightVNC to see if that works better (or points out differences in the session parameters)?
May I assume that you have not tweaked i.e. “anti-aliasing” settings on the SLES server side (working nor blurry server)?
This specific setup (MS Windows clients doing VNC via browser) is not my best field of experience - so if anyone else with more specific ideas than expressed above would like to join this discussion, please feel yourself invited!
Hi
The only thing I can think of is checking the output of xrandr on a
good and bad display via the remote session.
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Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
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Malcolm and Jens are our SUSE Linux gurus and should be able to help you sort out what’s happening behind the scenes…
I’m not familiar with the Dell PowerEdge 1950 so all I can offer is what I can glean from other Internet sources.
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[]This Dell PowerEdge 1950 data sheet states that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 EM64T is supported. It also states that it supports the DRAC5 card.
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[]This DELL™ REMOTE ACCESS CONTROLLER (DRAC) 5 readme states that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 EM64T is supported.
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[]Dell PowerEdge 1950 data sheet also states that the server has an ATI ES1000 on-board video controller. Google shows that many users have have had issues when using Linux with this controller which is also found on some HP servers. For example, here is another thread where Malcolm tried to help someone else: Max resolution 1024x768 with SLES11 SP2 on HP G5 G6 G7
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[]The SUSE YES CERTIFIED Bulletin Search shows the Dell PowerEdge 1950 / 2 is only certified for SLES11-SP1.
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You say that it worked prior to upgrading to SLES11-SP2 although you don’t say which version of SLES you were using. Given the above, and the fact that SLES11-SP2 uses version 3 of the kernel, you may very well just have an unsupported and incompatible configuration.