recursion

I am (finally) upgrading to a new computer at work. There is some law that no Linux installation may ever be routine, and this install followed that law. Here's my story, hopefully it will help others.

I asked for a flat panel, and they gave me a Sony SDM X72. Since it supports DVI, I wanted to use that.

I installed RedHat 9 and it did not detect my monitor. That's bad news, but I pressed on. I searched Google to little avail...apparently this monitor is highly popular in places that don't speak English. I looked up the specs (PDF) and set the horizontal scan, vertical scan, and resolution correctly. Still, nothing. XFree86 bombed out with a message saying the scan was out of range.

At this point, my co-worker Jason advised me to look up XFree86 and DVI-D because I was trying to use the monitor using digital DVI. Bingo. I found a message on the Xpert list (much more useful than xf-newbies, where every question goes unanswered!): DVI-D-savvy drivers?. Turns out you must use nVidia's binary-only drivers (the "nvidia" driver) instead of the open-source drivers (the "nv" driver). Apparently, nVidia won't share their drivers because it would allow Macrovision-free DVD output.

Short Version: Just use nVidia's drivers if you want to use DVI-D.