Gerall’s Blog

I got a new monitor; one capable of 1680×1050 resolution. (I earned it - trust me!) Plugged it in, hit the “input selection button” and it discovered I was using the DVI plug for my X session. I logged off my desktop session and logged back in. My screen was only at 1240×1024 or some such… Where the heck were the rest of my pixels?!?

It would seem that I’ve installed a slightly older revision of the Xubuntu distribution. One in which the xorg.conf file is ignorant of resolutions as amazing as mine. Now, I’ve booted Linux since before it was cool. Slackware ‘95, lads and lassies - back before the numbering system kicked in and the Linux kernel had matured to a heady 1.0 revision…

So, not wanting to download a new OS and install it for lack of a single line in a text file, I fired up a terminal and fixed my resolution.

Specifically, I opened xfce4-terminal and typed the command

sudo vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf

. Note: use the text editor of your choice, but be warned. Having word-wrap enabled might not be such a great idea…

Once inside the file, search for the “Modes” line. You should see a line that looks a lot like this:

Modes "1440x1440" "1440x900" "1360x850" …and so on…

Add the resolution you’d like as a default to the beginning of the list. My line now looks like this:

Modes "1680x1050" "1440x1440" "1440x900" "1360x850" …and so on…

Save the file. Exit the editor. Log out of X Windows and log back in.

I’m now pushing 1680×1050 pixels onto this bad boy and not missing a beat. Delicious!

Now that this is done, I need to twiddle with the LCD’s backlight a bit. That’s a hardware mod, done with the little buttons at the bottom of the panel. Keep on rockin’!

Tags: Technical //