Xfce Forum

One Salient Oversight

Member

Registered: 2009-01-24

Posts: 9

Fixing Screen Resolution

As far as I can tell, this is a common problem that people have had when they switched to Ubuntu 9.04, which is when my problems began.

I have an old 17 inch CRT monitor and my preference is for a resolution of 1280x1024. Yet every time I reboot and log in, the default resolution is 1024x768. Each time I have to go Settings ---> Display and manually change it back. Despite the fact that xfce is supposed to remember my settings when I log out, each time I log back in it is the same old yucky resolution.

From what I can tell, one fix seems to be editing xorg.conf and manually changing the lines in the file, but this looks very scary and, considering the widespread nature of the problem, I was wondering if there was a simpler solution?

Some links are here and here and here and here. For the widespread nature of the problem, click here. So far I can't discover any easy answers.

One Salient Oversight

Member

Registered: 2009-01-24

Posts: 9

Re: Fixing Screen Resolution

Can someone please help?

FrancisT

Member

Registered: 2009-05-20

Posts: 7

Re: Fixing Screen Resolution

Can someone please help?

You can create a one line shell script containing the correct xrandr command and run that as one of your startup options

E.g. to set the screen to 1280x1024 the following line should work (test it at a shell prompt)

xrandr --output VGA --mode 1280x1024 

Assuming this works then using mousepad (or the editor of your choice) create a file called hires.sh somewhere convenient with the following two lines in it:

#!/bin/bash
xrandr --output VGA --mode 1280x1024

do a chmod to make it executable (chmod a+x /path/to/hires.sh)
then use the Application Autostart tab in the "session and startup" settings applet to add this script to the autostart list.

Alternatively if the autostart doesn't work just stick it in ~/Desktop and you can click on it when you start. Its not perfect but one click isn't a big deal IMO.

Francis

One Salient Oversight

Member

Registered: 2009-01-24

Posts: 9

Re: Fixing Screen Resolution

None of that worked. In the end I played around with xorg.conf. Here is my quick story.

1) Discovered that previous version of xorg.conf (from 8.10) had been deprecated and replaced by a new xorg.conf.
2) Discovered that new xorg.conf was the "default" version - ie, with no useful information in it at all.
3) Copied and pasted the following from deprecated file to new xorg.conf:

Section "Screen"
    Identifier    "Default Screen"
    Device        "Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 65x/M650/740 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter"
    Monitor        "AOC Spectrum"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection "Display"
        Modes        "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

4. Problem solved