Redshift

Redshift error message - not sure what to do

Asked by aleth

Just installed redshift on a machine running ubuntu lucid, old nvidia graphics card, nouveau driver, no compiz enabled (in case this matters). On running redshift from the command line, I get the error message

Gamma ramp size too small: 0
Failed to start adjustment method randr.
Trying other method...

Aftert that redshift sits there (runs?) until aborted with ctrl-c. What to do?

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Jon Lund Steffensen
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Best Jon Lund Steffensen (jonls) said : 		#1

It means that redshift can't use the preferred RANDR extension and has to fall back on VidMode. I agree that the output could be more clear on what's going on. You can select VidMode explicitly with "-m vidmode" if you don't want redshift to try the RANDR extension which isn't supported by the closed source nvidia drivers.

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aleth (aleth) said : 		#2

Thanks for your reply!

So redshift is in fact running properly? What are the drawbacks of the vidmode method - performance?

Also, I thought the nouveau driver was an open source alternative to the nvidia proprietary drivers?
Are there any RANDR settings one should take a look at?

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Jon Lund Steffensen (jonls) said : 		#3

Yes it is running properly. The VidMode extension is not as flexible as the newer RANDR extension. VidMode will probably be phased out of the X server at some point in the future. If you are in fact using the open source driver, nouveau, and not the closed source driver, then I guess nouveau doesn't support RANDR either; I'm sure it will in the future.

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aleth (aleth) said : 		#4

Thanks Jon Lund Steffensen, that solved my question.

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aleth (aleth) said : 		#5

In case anyone else looks at this:
nouveau does support RandR and redshift works fine with it. My problem turned out to be the video driver configuration needed for this particular nvidia card.