Where is resolution info stored in maverick?

pickarooney

I've set up a windows Virtual Machine running Xubuntu 10.10. all was going fine until I stupidly tried to change the resolution to an apparently unsupported widescreen format. now everything is all coloured lines. I am able to just remove the xorg.conf file and restart but then the res is max of 800x600 when I need 1024x768.

The xorg.conf doesn't specifically mention what resolution to use and I can't figure out where exactly the info to use the buggy resolution is coming from.

Knasher

Just a guess but it could be in ~/.xprofile. If so it wouldn't affect your login screen so if you get that far then it must be something else.

Have you tried moving the xorg.conf file and then changing the resolution via whatever you used initially? If it saves the resolution to some separate file, you should then be able to put the xorg.conf file back and maybe use the new resolution.

croo

If it is set, supported monitor resolutions are normally in a "screen" section of the xorg.conf file. Something like...

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
	modes       "1920x1080"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

I think the modern approach is to generate xorg.conf files on the fly (I think) but if you set up an xorg.conf it will be used.

On ubuntu there is a "Monitors" menu option that will allow you to set the screen resolution or if you have an nvidia graphics adapter with their binaries they have a config app. nvidia-settings-config or something like that... I cannot remember precisely.

croo

I just noticed you included a xorg.conf file and it does include a screen section.

Long ago you could switch between the available settings using <CTRL><ALT><+> ... i might be only the + on the numeric keypad!?

Another option might be to edit your xorg.conf and remove the other screen resolution modes and leave just the one you want!

pickarooney

croo wrote: »

Another option might be to edit your xorg.conf and remove the other screen resolution modes and leave just the one you want!

That's what worked in the end. Maddeningly easy when you think about it

DeepBlue

Hopefully I'm not piggy-backing on your topic pickarooney but my problem is very similar.
Booted up this morning to find my monitor display settings were gone and I was left with a maximum resolution of 1024x768 when I had previously been using 1280x1024.

The Settings Display applet had previously recognised my brand of Monitor but now just displays generic "Monitor" instead of the brand name.

I had this problem before and "solved it" by reinstalling the OS. :rolleyes: I really don't want to have to go through that again.
I can't find any xorg.conf file in /etc/X11 and I'm running Xubuntu 11.04.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Knasher

DeepBlue wrote: »

Any suggestions gratefully received.

What graphics card do you have?

DeepBlue

After running lspci
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AS [Radeon 9550]
01:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AS [Radeon 9550] (Secondary)

Edit: Typing xrandr -s 1280x1024 at the command line brought the resolution back. The Display applet know recognises the model of monitor.
Now I wonder if the settings will persist after a reboot.......

Knasher

DeepBlue wrote: »

Now I wonder if the settings will persist after a reboot.......

I doubt it, I'm not as familiar with ATI so I probably can't be a whole lot of help here. But if I had to guess I'd say you are running the mesa drivers which don't support detection of your monitor. Once you specify the resolution it will accept it but you won't have any 3D support or any acceleration.

Depending on if you are using the open source or binarydriver you should check out these pages. Also this mentions people trying to regenerate their xorg.conf.

DeepBlue

Knasher wrote: »

Depending on if you are using the open source or binarydriver you should check out these pages. Also this mentions people trying to regenerate their xorg.conf.

Thanks for that.

The settings did persist after a reboot so I shall leave well enough alone for the moment.

I'd been using the Settings Display Applet yesterday and the problem arose today so I presume that Display Applet is buggy. At least I learned something about xrandr and can use that in future and, thankfully, don't have to re-install........at least until later in the month or whenever the next iteration is due.