Hi,
I am a newbie to Debain linux and I've installed Debian-sarge on my AMD athelon pc.
I 've also installed the gnome-desktop but the resolution I am getting is 800 X 600. I haven't had the option to choose 1024 X 760. Can anyone help me how can I change the the resolution?

thanks in advance,
siva

Do dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 and when you get to the monitor section choose advanced and select the resolution you want.

use

so you only get low priority questions. it's easier, trust me.

If the above doesn't work. then there is one last step you should try.

Open the '/etc/X11/XF86Config-4' and add the screen resolution that you want to where it has: "800x600"

sorry if this is vague. if this doesn't help I'll post a very detailed and step by step instruction.

Hi,
Thankyou very much for your help and I reconfigures my xfree86-config and it worked greatly.

thanks a lot,
siva

glad i could help. one question. did you edit 'XF86Config' or 'XF86Config-4' ?

I ran into the same problem with sarge (pre-release; 08/21/04) netinstall; first I tried the "dpkg-reconfigure -plow xserver-xfree86" option to correct it; did not know what the device number etc, so could not finish it.

Then I edited the "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4" directly; added "1024x768" in addition to the "800x600"... for depths 24 etc and restarted the system and it worked fine afterwards!

yup. I don't know what the problem is... but it seems that the 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86' command edits the XF86Config file rather than the newer XF86Congif-4 file. XServer now uses the XF86Config-4 file now for it's settings, atleast the versions from 4.0 and above(i think that's the right version. someone correct me if i'm wrong). I think this could be labeled as a bug, but that's just my thoughts. I'm pretty sure there should be an option for that command that would fix it, but that's unknown to me. soo.... For all those who just installed Debian Sarge from the Net-installer, run the above command and then manually edit the XF86Config-4 file.


p.s. Does anyone else think that it would be possible, since 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86' edits the XF86Config file rather than the XF86Config-4 file, would it be workable to just copy the XF86Config file and save it under the name XF86Config-4? Anyone brave enough to try it?

To cover my own rear end... If you are going to try it back up your original XF86Config-4 file BEFORE you change it. This is always good standard practice. I've provided the required commands to backup the file and to test my theory.

su
<root password>(login as root)
cd /etc/X11
cp XF86Config-4 ./XF86Config-4.old
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
cp XF86Config ./XF86Config-4
reboot


p.s. It's always better to login under a non-root user then 'su' to gain root access rather than just logging in as root. Because when logged in as root very dangerous things can happen....

The reboot step is unnecessary, you can change it for /etc/init.d/kdm restart (change this to xdm, gdm or wdm depending on which you are using for a display manager) to restart the X server along with the display manager with the new settings.