Basically, my monitor is too dark. I followed a calibration guide I found on the internet, and I did what it said, set the contrast to full, and use xgamma to adjust the gamma. However, still need to increase the brightness, but on my monitor it is set to highest. All I can find is a program called xbrightness, but that needs XFree86, and I am using X.org. The only other method I have found is to use nvidia-settings, but I don't have an NVIDIA card on the computer that needs sorting.

So is there a better way to do it, or will I have to switch to XFree86? If so, how would I go about doing that? I am using Ubuntu by the way. Cheers.

Get a new monitor. Yours is apparantly going out.

I was afraid of that. Oh well, thanks anyway.

How old is your monitor? You should be able to use the brightness and contrast buttons located on the monitor itself to adjust the display. Also, are you using an especially dark glare screen? It may be that your monitor is reaching the end of its service life, but I wouldn't immediately jump to that conclusion without exploring other options first. Good luck with it either way

It's pretty old, I would imagine it is getting to the end of it's "service life". But if there is a way to get more time out of it, even if it doesn't look perfect, that would be great. So, what issues would changing to XFree86 cause, and how difficult would it be?

This is a long shot because I expect it's a dead art now, but in the old days you could get tubes reconditioned (including CRTs). Basically, the beam current used to drop off because of the heaters or cathodes degrading or something. If you can find someone even older than I they might know how to rejuvenate the tube. It's about running the heater at a higher than normal voltage and other fiddling about.

Please don't do it yourself unless you know about valves (US: tubes) as messing around colour CRTs can be dangerous. There us up to 20kV acceleration voltage inside (ouch!), and if you screw the tube up, you can end up X-raying yourself. Maybe ask a retired TV service technician or someone like that.