Debian: very low resolution and an “unknown monitor” problem

debianlinuxmonitorsresolutionx11

Edit: I have installed CrunchBang (or #!, a Debian-based distro), and that seems to have solved all of my resolution problems.

I've just installed Debian after using Linux Mint for a few months.

Everything went on smooth, however, when the installation was over I noticed that the resolution was set really low.

I went to System > Preferences > Monitors, and that told me that the highest available resolution was 1024 * 768.

It also did not recognize my monitor properly as it was listed as "Unknown", the only rotation option was "Normal" and the refresh rate was "0 Hz" (although I'm having no problems with the refresh rate at the moment).

How can I get an optimal resolution (the native one)?

xrandr says:

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 800 x 600, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1024 x 768
default connected 1024x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1024x768        0.0* 
   800x600        61.0

lspci -v | grep VGA says:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Sandy Bridge Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc NI Seymour [AMD Radeon HD 6470M] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

I'm not sure why there seem to be two graphics cards.

Currently I'm trying to install the non-free AMD/ATI r6xx r7xx drivers. Is this a good move? <- this changed nothing

I'm also missing the Xorg.conf file. <- As suggested I've created one, but that only made my computer unable to start displaying anything after Grub. I'll have to delete it from Ubunto.

If there's any more potentially useful info please tell me so I could share it.

Best Answer

Edit: I've found an actual solution that doesn't require you to install CrunchBang instead of Debian!

I was using Debian Squeeze, that used a kernel version that, apparently, did not support my graphics card.

The solution is simply upgrading to Debian testing (Wheezy).

Change your etc/apt/sources.list to:

deb http://ftp.hr.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.hr.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free

And then execute sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade.

Bam! Now you have a newer (and almost completely stable, as in, you probably wont experience any errors) version of Debian, which probably supports your card better than the older one.

Solution 2:

I have installed #! (CrunchBang) and all the problems were gone.

#! is pretty much Debian with some default configurations and Openbox by default.

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