Higher resolution display problem

[Jonathon]

I'm new to Linux and I need some help. I'm running Mandrake 10.1 and I had my resolution at 1024*768. I went to the configure your computer window through the system option. I changed my resolution to 1268(?)*1024 and now my screen is all messed up.
It's like there are several screens on the one. Everything overlaps on itself.
Is there a way to get it back to 1024*728, is there like a Alt+? or Ctrl+? that I can use.
Any help would be very much appreciated.

[bigjohn]

I'm new to Linux and I need some help. I'm running Mandrake 10.1 and I had my resolution at 1024*768. I went to the configure your computer window through the system option. I changed my resolution to 1268(?)*1024 and now my screen is all messed up.
It's like there are several screens on the one. Everything overlaps on itself.
Is there a way to get it back to 1024*728, is there like a Alt+? or Ctrl+? that I can use.
Any help would be very much appreciated.

well as it might depend on a few things, I don't know.

Is this a laptop ? because laptops (having fixed native resolutions) are notorious for doing strange things.

In truth, whether is a laptop or desktop, I think it's a case of editing your xorg.conf file so that you can restore the previous resolution - Erm that changed one should read 1280x1024, but irrespective.......

This is what the monitor and screen sections look on my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file look like - yes you may think that this looks different from yours i.e. I'm using 1600x1200, because my monitor is a 21 inch Philips 201b, but that isn't a problem.

Section "Monitor"

# TV fullscreen mode or DVD fullscreen output.
# 768x576 @ 79 Hz, 50 kHz hsync
Identifier "monitor1"
VendorName "Philips"
ModelName "Philips 201B(21inch/CM0770)"
HorizSync 30.0 - 94.0
VertRefresh 48.0 - 160.0
ModeLine "768x576" 50.0 768 832 846 1000 576 590 595 630
ModeLine "768x576" 63.1 768 800 960 1024 576 578 590 616
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "nVidia Corp."
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce4 (generic)"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen1"
Device "device1"
Monitor "monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "DPMS"
Option "IgnoreEDID" "1"
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1600 1200
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1600 1200
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1600 1200
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1600 1200
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

if you look at mine, you will see that I've got mine set to 1600x1200 (but you'll see that my monitor is quite large @ 21 inches).

It's showing that I'm using quite a wide frequency range for my resolution settings "HorizSync 30.0 - 94.0
VertRefresh 48.0 - 160.0"

but thats what my monitor can "do". if you can (dual boot or something) you should be able to find out what you're monitor should be set at via google or if you have an instruction book/leaflet for your monitor the technical spec should be there.

Once you have that info you should be able to amend the file so it has the right settings... see below I'll explain how to do that with vi

regards

John

p.s. Oh or maybe if you do have dual boot, you might also find additional help (or something thats explained in a more understandable way that I can at mandrivausers or at linuxquestions

[bigjohn]

Had to post it like this because I'd typed a mega great long answer then realised that I was explaining the wrong bit above, so I've edited that and now the next bit.

Whenever I've had a ****** (unreadable) screen it's usually been the frequency settings being wrong - my quoted xorg.conf section above, well you can see it has the setting and driver selection for an nvidia card - if I use a distro that doesn't already have it installed/configured, it would show the card, but it would also show the driver as "nv", which is the generic one that doesn't work very well with my system and usually means that I have to find a way of making sure that the res is set to 1600x1200 @ 60 hz - anything higher than that makes mine reall unreadable - untill I install the proper nvidia driver (from their site).

Looking at the way this seems to be done now with mandriva, you'll see that it just lists the horizontal and vertical frequency rates set - well mine shows a range of frequencies it'll do - but rather than having the resolution set there as well it's been done with the screen and display subsections using the Section "Screen"' Identifier "screen1", Device "device1" Monitor "monitor1" and DefaultDepth 24 selections and the res appears to be identified in the sub-sections below that.

So I'd suggest that you hit ctrl+alt+backspace keys together, which should drop you into a CLI login.

root (and hit enter afterwards to login) followed by the root password, which should drop you into a root login (identified with a # at the end).

As far as I understand the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file is the default one that mandriva uses to set the resolution - if you change stuff in the Mandriva control centre with the graphic interface all its actually doing is changing this file.

So from the CLI login, you just use the vi editor to change it (vi is, I believe the default text editor).

From the # put in

vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

which will open the file and if you use the arrow keys, you should find a section that looks very similar to the one I posted above.

In the bits that look like this

Section "Screen"
Identifier "screen1"
Device "device1"
Monitor "monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "DPMS"
Option "IgnoreEDID" "1"
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1600 1200
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1600 1200
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1600 1200
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Virtual 1600 1200
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

you should be able to just change the resolution numbers to whatever you want to set (I'd change then all, even though, as you can see, my default depth is 24, so it might work by just changing the SubSection "Display" that is 24 to whatever you need to set).

Just remember that vi isn't a word processor, so you have to make the changes a little differently.

You scroll down, using the arrow keys to move the cursor to the bit you want to change, then hit the insert buttom, then you can make the change(s) that you want.

Once you finish making any changes, you need to save them and quit the file/editor. To do that, finish making the change, then hit the Esc button and then just type :wq (thats colon sign : followed by wq).

Then you should be able to restart the X server to see what it looks like, with the

startx

command.

I know that seems like a lot, but it's quicker to do that than it is to type out this explaination.

Yes, there are other ways to do this as well, but if you can't see/read your screen then it's about the easiest (and quickest) way. doing stuff like running the reconfiguring utility from command line requires considerably more info - which you might not have (or know) anyway.

Oh and the resolution numbers are 1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024 - you could try the higher ones and see if it's sorted (I suspect that 1268 x 1024 is just confusing the hell out of your system as that would be an unsupported resolution).

maybe that helps??

regards

John

[Jonathon]

Thanks for yout reply bigjohn. I'll give your method a try.