xref: /linux/Documentation/admin-guide/edid.rst (revision 95298d63c67673c654c08952672d016212b26054)
1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
2
3====
4EDID
5====
6
7In the good old days when graphics parameters were configured explicitly
8in a file called xorg.conf, even broken hardware could be managed.
9
10Today, with the advent of Kernel Mode Setting, a graphics board is
11either correctly working because all components follow the standards -
12or the computer is unusable, because the screen remains dark after
13booting or it displays the wrong area. Cases when this happens are:
14
15- The graphics board does not recognize the monitor.
16- The graphics board is unable to detect any EDID data.
17- The graphics board incorrectly forwards EDID data to the driver.
18- The monitor sends no or bogus EDID data.
19- A KVM sends its own EDID data instead of querying the connected monitor.
20
21Adding the kernel parameter "nomodeset" helps in most cases, but causes
22restrictions later on.
23
24As a remedy for such situations, the kernel configuration item
25CONFIG_DRM_LOAD_EDID_FIRMWARE was introduced. It allows to provide an
26individually prepared or corrected EDID data set in the /lib/firmware
27directory from where it is loaded via the firmware interface. The code
28(see drivers/gpu/drm/drm_edid_load.c) contains built-in data sets for
29commonly used screen resolutions (800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1200,
301680x1050, 1920x1080) as binary blobs, but the kernel source tree does
31not contain code to create these data. In order to elucidate the origin
32of the built-in binary EDID blobs and to facilitate the creation of
33individual data for a specific misbehaving monitor, commented sources
34and a Makefile environment are given here.
35
36To create binary EDID and C source code files from the existing data
37material, simply type "make" in tools/edid/.
38
39If you want to create your own EDID file, copy the file 1024x768.S,
40replace the settings with your own data and add a new target to the
41Makefile. Please note that the EDID data structure expects the timing
42values in a different way as compared to the standard X11 format.
43
44X11:
45  HTimings:
46    hdisp hsyncstart hsyncend htotal
47  VTimings:
48    vdisp vsyncstart vsyncend vtotal
49
50EDID::
51
52  #define XPIX hdisp
53  #define XBLANK htotal-hdisp
54  #define XOFFSET hsyncstart-hdisp
55  #define XPULSE hsyncend-hsyncstart
56
57  #define YPIX vdisp
58  #define YBLANK vtotal-vdisp
59  #define YOFFSET vsyncstart-vdisp
60  #define YPULSE vsyncend-vsyncstart
61