babar333
12-24-06, 04:33 PM
I recently got 1920x1080P working on my Sharp LC-37D90U using Ubuntu Linux 6.10. I would highly recommend this distro for its ease of use. I am not an expert on Linux, but these notes may be helpful to someone. I wasted a lot of time trying to get the Nvidia drivers configured so these notes might save you some time. I am using Asus M2N-E motherboard, AMD Athlon 64x2 4200 EE (35 watt energy efficient), and 2 GB crucial 6400 DDR2 memory, Nvidia GeForce 7900GT.
1) I connected my Sharp LC-37D90U using a dual-link DVI to DVI cable to input 5 which I relabeled “PC” by pressing the Menu button on the remote and then selecting the Setup>Input Label menu. By pressing the View Mode button on the remote I selected “Dot by Dot.”
2) Download the latest version of Ubuntu Linux 6.10, either the live CD or the DVD. I went with the 32bit version because I didn't want to be too cutting edge.
3) At the installation menu press F4 and choose the highest resolution that your monitor can support. I chose 1280x1024x32 because that was the highest in the list. (I had a problem where I got kernel panic error messages during bootup and the bootup process would hang. This is a well-documented bug, and I got around it by pressing F6 and typing “noapic” [enter].) After that make a few selections and the installation goes smoothly.
4) Click on System>Administration>Update Manager and install all the updates.
5) Click on System>Administraion>Software Sources. Make sure all 5 repositories are selected. Close.
6) Click on Applications>Add/Remove. Click on System Tools. Select Nvidia binary X.org driver. Click apply. Click apply. Now the nvidia driver 1.0-8776 should be installed.
7) Here is where I ran into problems and wasted a lot of hours. The instructions on the Ubuntu website say to open the terminal and type “sudo nvidia-glx-config enable”. This resulted in error messages for me. The nvidia website says to type “sudo nvidia-xconfig”. This worked for me. Restart your computer for changes to take effect. (Note: to check whether the configuration was successful type in the terminal: “glxinfo | grep rendering”. If you did everything right it should give the result: “direct rendering: Yes.”) Now click on Preferences>Screen Resolution. The options should now include 1920x1080. Select 1920x1080 and click Apply.
8) If you want you can add the Nvidia Settings program to your Preferences menu. Right click on System. Left click on Edit Menus. Click to select Preferences. Click New Item. In the name box type “Nvidia Settings.” In the command box type “nvidia-settings”. Click on OK. Click close. To run nvidia settings click on System>Preferences>Nvidia settings. Now you have lots of settings to tinker with.
9) Adding additional software such as DVD players, Java support, Microsoft fonts, flash, thunderbird email, multimedia codecs etc. is exceedingly easy in Ubuntu Linux. Just run Add/Remove software and choose what you want. If you can't find something try the more advanced Synaptic Package Manager. To play encrypted DVDs you need to get libdvdread3 using Synaptic Package Manager. Then open the terminal and type: “sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh”.
Hopefully this will be helpful to someone and perhaps encourage others to give Ubuntu 6.10 a try.
1) I connected my Sharp LC-37D90U using a dual-link DVI to DVI cable to input 5 which I relabeled “PC” by pressing the Menu button on the remote and then selecting the Setup>Input Label menu. By pressing the View Mode button on the remote I selected “Dot by Dot.”
2) Download the latest version of Ubuntu Linux 6.10, either the live CD or the DVD. I went with the 32bit version because I didn't want to be too cutting edge.
3) At the installation menu press F4 and choose the highest resolution that your monitor can support. I chose 1280x1024x32 because that was the highest in the list. (I had a problem where I got kernel panic error messages during bootup and the bootup process would hang. This is a well-documented bug, and I got around it by pressing F6 and typing “noapic” [enter].) After that make a few selections and the installation goes smoothly.
4) Click on System>Administration>Update Manager and install all the updates.
5) Click on System>Administraion>Software Sources. Make sure all 5 repositories are selected. Close.
6) Click on Applications>Add/Remove. Click on System Tools. Select Nvidia binary X.org driver. Click apply. Click apply. Now the nvidia driver 1.0-8776 should be installed.
7) Here is where I ran into problems and wasted a lot of hours. The instructions on the Ubuntu website say to open the terminal and type “sudo nvidia-glx-config enable”. This resulted in error messages for me. The nvidia website says to type “sudo nvidia-xconfig”. This worked for me. Restart your computer for changes to take effect. (Note: to check whether the configuration was successful type in the terminal: “glxinfo | grep rendering”. If you did everything right it should give the result: “direct rendering: Yes.”) Now click on Preferences>Screen Resolution. The options should now include 1920x1080. Select 1920x1080 and click Apply.
8) If you want you can add the Nvidia Settings program to your Preferences menu. Right click on System. Left click on Edit Menus. Click to select Preferences. Click New Item. In the name box type “Nvidia Settings.” In the command box type “nvidia-settings”. Click on OK. Click close. To run nvidia settings click on System>Preferences>Nvidia settings. Now you have lots of settings to tinker with.
9) Adding additional software such as DVD players, Java support, Microsoft fonts, flash, thunderbird email, multimedia codecs etc. is exceedingly easy in Ubuntu Linux. Just run Add/Remove software and choose what you want. If you can't find something try the more advanced Synaptic Package Manager. To play encrypted DVDs you need to get libdvdread3 using Synaptic Package Manager. Then open the terminal and type: “sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh”.
Hopefully this will be helpful to someone and perhaps encourage others to give Ubuntu 6.10 a try.