Ubuntu 16.04 – Display driver/ screen resolution after installation

driversresolutionUbuntuxrandr

A fresh install of Ubuntu was made on a quite old PC ( say – 10 years old ).
A 1920x 1080 monitor is connected via RGB… BUT showing a single possible screen res – 1280X1024 ( which is not my/ screens preferable one).

Since it is an old PC- I don't have any solid knowledge regarding it hardware ( MSI mother board, internal graphics card, E2140 1.60GHz, code 2 duo … and that's about it ), so looking for any display drivers, was not a great success.

My main question is- What is the best way to start this search ?
1) using xrandr – showed only this 1 mode of resolution.
2) Is is a display driver issue ?
3) May be it is a Hardware issue ( since it is quite an old one…)

Anything else?

Edit 1: Perhaps Motherboard is https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/P4M900M2L/Specification

How can I get its drivers ? on manufacturer's site- it support windows only

Edit 2: Motherboard model is P4M890

Edit 3- Commandline output

$ lspci -nnk | grep -A3 VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: VIA Technologies, Inc. P4M890 [S3 UniChrome Pro] [1106:3343] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] P4M890 [S3 UniChrome Pro] [1462:7255]
        Kernel modules: viafb
04:01.0 Audio device [0403]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A/VT8251 HDA Controller [1106:3288] (rev 10)


guy@desktop:~$ xrandr -d :0
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 1280 x 1024, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 1280 x 1024
default connected primary 1280x1024+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1280x1024     77.00*
guy@desktop:~$

Best Answer

Running

lshw -c video

should give you some video info, the product: and vendor: lines being pertinent.

Then search for "ubuntu video " or "ubuntu video " to find out what others have done to solve the same problem.

A generic ubuntu video driver shows some "meta" questions and promising sounding links like these, following the directions for your manufacturer should work:


Your video appears to be VIA P4M890 and a web search for ubuntu via p4m890 S3 UniChrome Pro found a few promising leads, but it looks like some aren't supported anymore: