what did I do wrong

[puntmuts]

yes, the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file

[UgoDeschamps]

No usable configuration, usualy meens that the resolution / refresh rate are bad for the monitor/videoCard... Please provide us with the xorg.conf file and we'll have a look at it

[budman7]

Thank you for asking for the xorg.conf file. It didn't exist before, all that was there was a sample. After reading on the link above, I realized I had to do "xorgconfig", after I did that, and went through all of the steps to do so, I typed "startx", and now I am typing this message from a GUI in Slackware 10.

My original problem, that I have been having with Linux still remains though, no version of Linux has seen the correct size of my monitor. Last week Mandrake 10.1 saw it correctly for a little while. Ugodeschamps helped me set my font size correctly from the CLI. Normally I have to "Adjust All Fonts" and set them to 150 so I can see them. But Mandrake, after I went through so much headache getting it right, decided to go back to not seeing my monitor correctly. So I decided to try a different distro, hence Slackware 10.

I think this is a problem that I am just going to have to learn to live with. Till I get a new video card or monitor, whichever one is causing the problem.

Thank you very much for your help.:

[puntmuts]

Nice to hear you've got your X working. Did you fill in the specs of the monitor into the xorg.conf file ? What resolution are you using ?

Specs for your monitor seems to be

f h: 30~97kHz; f v: 50~180Hz

according to Viewsonic.

Sometimes switching to a different refresh rate will result in a better imagequality. You can do that by adding modlines to your config. Modlines can be calculated using a modline calculator on the web (use google).

I had an IIyama 19" CRT and the imagequality was crappy, whatever I tried. After two years of bad quality I decided to buy a 17" TFT, resulting in a very good quality. Should have done that earlier, in my case it was crappy hardware.

[budman7]

I am using 800x600 with a 73 hz refresh rate. And yes, those are the numbers that I entered. I had them written down from a month ago. I just couldn't remember where to put them.