display problem
 

First I will say my real name is Jim allAn. I cap the last name that way because everybody insists on looking for Allen and get disturbed when they don't find me. I have been in and out of Ubuntu for about two years without really learning anything. Being 71 I date back to all dos machines and things like a vic 20 with only 5kb memory and tape drives. I still have a vic 20.
On to my real question and reason for being here today. I recently dlded a file that installed Ubuntu all by itself. The problem was there are no options I found to change something like the display. I get to the point where I believe would show the desktop when the screen screws up and lays on it's side with many many lines. I am guessing I need to change the display mode or something. I have seen it react to the k board or mouse, but it is totally impossible to read it. I have gotten to a cmd line but don't really don't remember how. I have used a man page to test the dos mode. It works.
I am hoping that,since I am on a shared broadband I don't need a modem so it just might go online. I really want to get there so I can talk with people direct from Linux to find out things. I think I have already found some good info sites.
I better tell you what I am using before I forget. I use an old dell tower mch running win xp pro and Ubuntu 9.xxx through grub for duel booting. I do try to get to a local user group called Southerntier ny lug but transportation is a problem. Stnylug seems to be a great bunch of people.

Try X -configure
man xorg.conf

Tidy up your posts. This isn't a blog.

More tidy posts will come quickly. This is my first time here.
I didn't know how I might post a follow-up but here goes.
An ubuntu 9.10 disk just arrived and I made much progress. I started through install and all went ok until I came to importing settings and such. I am operating in a safe graphics mode until I find a better option. On the import page I found no way past it. I think the page, in current mode, is to tall putting the options below the page. I have seen it before.
I am probably better off going with the disk rather than trying to fix the original display problem. What ever you people say is best I will try.
It did go online reading suggested stuff, so I am real happy at this point.
Thanks much for the help thus far.

X -configure tidies up the configuration of X automagically.
The lines lying sideways or diagonally means the monitor isn't able to do the speed it's been asked. Ususlly it's being asked to go faster, but sometimes slower.
Find out the max refresh rates (horizontal & vertical) your monitor does in Khz, and Hz respectively. Let's say it 55KhzThen you need two lines in xorg.conf

HorizSync 31.5 - 55 # Meaning 31.5 - 55 Khz
VertRefresh 50 - 75 # Meaning 50-75 Hz

search for those terms in xorg.conf

grep HorizSync /etc/X11/xorg.conf to make sure there's not another setting and restart X

greenknight,

I understand your situation as you have well explained above. When I was at your newbie stage I first sought out a tutorial to hasten up my 'familiarization' with the new OS. Download this well written tutorial, quite old but nevertheless it has everything that a newbie commonly looks for. You don't need to read it all at once: each time you need to know something you can browse the Table Of Contents for a lead.

To configure your display size, launch a terminal (dos prompt or shell) from Menu > Accessories > Terminal Emulator, then enter this command:

green@host-$ X configure

a help or choices of options are offered, read and find which of it you need. All other Linux commands mostly you find help by typing into the terminal $ man "command". To learn about the 'X configure' command you will type:

green@host -$ man X configure

Get a full introduction from Paul Sheer on the tutorial you downloaded. To the basic minimizes our dependence to other which usually are not that quick.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

The directions given to fix my display speed do not seem to difficult. My problem is how to implement them if I can't access a cmd line. How do I get to the cmd line.
I assume I would need to interupt the boot/install procedure. I did say I had been on a cmd line but don't remember how I got there during install.
The only thing I was able to find in windows was that display is running at 60hz with no apparent other speeds. I have seen the present results of setting it to fast on other monitors.

Lighten up, please. His post was WAY above average on the tidymeter....

Ways to get to command line:

1. ctrl-alt-F1 (or F2, F3, etc.----typically there are 6 setup: F1 thru F6)
2. single-user mode: When the grub menu appears, hit any key to stop the countdown. Then hit "e" for edit, select the kernel line, "e" again, and add the word "single" (no quotes) at the end. Hit enter and then "b" to boot.
3. And of course, just open a terminal from the GUI

No you don't need to do it, yea I remember, under M$windows we needed to foil the boot sequence in order to enter repair-mode equipped with a command line, but with Linux, as do other Unix like, the terminal (command line) is always available even if X-window is at full-throttle. The shell, a real time terminal running outside the Xwindow, is available by pressing Ctl-Alt-F1, F2,F3,F4,F5 whichever is set available by the init, just follow the instructions given by pixellany above. If there is no need to do things outside the Xwindow you only need to launch the terminal from the Menu button, the third option in the list of pixellany above given.

Reminder: it is always good to work configuring X window when it is not running. So, normally, you have to logout from current user, then at the login dialogue find a button that offers a 'terminal login' or you may just leave it and opt to press any of the choices of combination in the #1 of pixellany's list above, login as 'root', then you have all the power to make or unmake your system.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

BTW greenknight thank you for pressing the blue button, it makes an oldman's heart feeling a bit younger. :)

I hate it when something like this makes me look like a complete idiot.
I assume by grub menu you mean the choice between windows or ubuntu. I hit any key and the display freezes. I hit e and nothing happens. I hit it again and still nothing happens. I try crtl alt f keys and again nothing happens. I even tried it at the language choice window. Zip.
Am I stupid or does this thing really have a mind of it's own.

greenknight,

Be patient, no newbie ever passed easily from the horizon of idiocy. :) we were there before.

Yes you got pixellany right.

Well, that's not the way Grub wanted it to be so probably it did not understand and stopped doing wanting to leave the scene.

The correct way to stop Grub from counting the seconds is to hit 'Esc' or 'Tab' keys, then it will offer you another Blue-Red-White screen command dialogue box.

Yes, it freezes.

No, you are not. You and Grub just needed another time to learn to know each other. So, read this good Grub tutorial page it is short but you don't need to read it all at once. Just cull from it the subject you currently need most.

When the 'e' does not respond it means something was wrong that grub cannot go on to accommodate edited commands, you will need to reboot, Ctl+Alt+Del, then wait until the moment you rightly press Esc or Tab.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

I am sorry to say it still does not work. I tied all the combinations, I think, Esc and tab in both win highlighted and Ubuntu highlighted. They all stoped the clock, but no response to e. GRRR! Maybe something is messed up because I have tried both the disc and the wubi thing. Since the wubi got me the most, again I think, I will try that again. No, the disc would be faster so I will try that.

You don't need to edit grub to get to the command line.
One of your grub entries will be Ubuntu ..... (Recovery mode).

Select that one with the Up/Down arrow keys, then press Return.

It boots and a menu appears
Choose "Drop to root shell prompt" with the Up/Down arrow keys, then press Return.

Enter YOUR password (nothing be printed on the screen as you type, but it's working)
Press Return.

Now you are root, and can try all the tricks to configure your X server properly (see above).

Most posts seem to recommend a simple
as being a good fix-all in the first instance.

( X --configure did not work for me, and I had to <CTRL>-C to abort the X server startup, which had frozen )

Then you can type reboot to do just that when you press the Return key.

This time, don't choose the recovery mode.

I don't believe it. It finally went all the way through the installation. What I did different could not have affected it.
While it was in the early stages I Tried interupting it like I was in grub. I tried e a feww times and nothing. Even tried eee and nothing happened. I need to take that back. When I first interupted it I did get the usual shadow password thing. Then I tied the e thing. Eventually it went to the text screen which normally comes up showing different things it had done. Finally the install options came up.
I tried the live disc and it failed. I started again trying to actually install Ubuntu. It went normal like expected. When it came to the import page, I fooled with that finally importing nothing. Then I noticed the continue options were there. Of course I continued always accepting default where possible.
I finally ended up on the login page. Actually I did get this far before but couldn't get by the password. This time I did. The screen is still messed up but the first part of grub was entirely different. There were five options. Four for Ubuntu and one for windblows. The good thing at this time is it explained the e thing. I assume it will work. There was also mention of a recovery thing I think. Then it went to the second grub screen.
Needles to say I am happy with it as is for now. I will try the e instructions after lunch. I need a pause anyhow.

I got it part way working. I was already root for some reason which doesn't seem right. The dpkg - reconfigure xserver - xserver - xorg
and x configure both were accepted but not all the way. Both cmds said things marked with (*) give a lot of output. Pipe through less or _. I haven't learned pipe yet so stopped to do more studying. I think we are getting closer. Thinking is a thing a man should not do.

I disagree: Thinking is what men do do.

No matter :)

If you are having trouble, help us to help you by posting the command(s) you tried, and the error messages you received. Please do not be vague - "I got an error message", be precise.

Unlike windows, linux tries to tell you exactly what went wrong, where, when and why.

This is useful.

And please do not abbreviate your posts as txt-spk. It is both annoying and leads to confusion.

Quick piping lesson:

command > command.out 2>&1
pipes the errors and messages of something flying past you. If you ran X -configure as a user, it might fail to write the xorg.conf and put it on stdout.

The other regular trick is this

command1 |command2 |command3 |command4 etc.

sends the output of 1 command to the input of command2, etc. There are piles of these listed somewhere everybody should know about and have read. You will gather I fail on both counts.

What???!!!---Do you mean we should just hang you on the wall with a feeding tube?

But of course. The first time I red this, it didn't make the connection Now i do.
I am going to try piping in a minute. Our isp has problems and I want to catch up on a few things while it is partly working. Only get less than .06% net usage right now,

Veerryy interesting! If I stop grub with a c I get a sh----prompt #which I guess is a shell. If I let grub finish,and select ubuntu recovery, I get the cute red white blue box. Selecting the. about third one, I get a root prompt. As root most things worked but an invalid command or such and root told me so. Sometimes giving suggestion which I guess were files where the command could be used. One wrong entry got me a bash prompt. I tried find for grub and it said grub was not installed, but I could install it by typing "apt-get install grub." That was confusing because because I got there from grub. Maybe I am just not understanding fully what it said.

If grub's not there, you will know about it if you reboot!
Thinking it through, we only install grub in one system usually whereas I usually have at least 2 systems. I think the grub on this box was from an ubuntu distro that I hastily wiped.

For sure, I would not be able to get there without grub. My grub came from a distro disk so should be good. Dlds could have an almost un-seeable error. I will; just keep mudling through until I get it right. I am to close to give to now.

Up date:
I decided to take the easy way out and hookup my old 300 mhz Compaq. I have run several Linux distros. Only trouble now is I need to find the Lan card I had temporarily removed. Either that or buy one because I think the old one went bad. Always something. Anyway since I have run several distros, I am sure it can handle the display. I should have it online in a couple days.

refresh rate
 

I had this question in Newbies for a time but could not get a workable solution. I am trying to put the latest version of Ubuntu 9.xxx on this computer using dual boot with windblows xp pro. Everything appears to be ok until it tries to display the desk top. Then it goes horizontal with many many lines making it unreadable. This I gather is due to asking the monitor to display at the wrong rate. The trouble lies in finding a way in to change it. As far I can tell it only wants to use 60k hertz. I find no other. What speed could the distro be asking it to go. About the closest I get is in through selecting recovery mode. I just never get to see the x file or even grub so that I could change it.

Install package xresprobe to get your monitor's sync & refresh rates. To do this, enter Use this information to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Copy to master.xorg.conf first, although it looks like you have nothing much to lose you need to make sure you can retrace.
Your "monitor" section should look something like this, put in the rates you need. There are several editors, is good:
Note the commenting out of Option "DPMS" "true"

Another possibility, looking at the "screen" section:
If DefaultColorDepth is 24, change to 16.

There are many possibilities for a sample xorg.conf file, but these changes have previously worked for problems such as yours.

I really like this solution. I needed to be told to use gedit. It never occurred to me it should work in this situation. The rest seems easy. Where have I heard that before? I really would like to try it now, at 4:30 am, but I must catch a buss at 7:00 and don't dare let myself get so concentrated on fixing it. I would forget my ride I dare not miss. I should be able to have it done though before 3:00 pm. It will make me very happy to reply from Ubuntu. I will have no trouble getting online since I have highspeed always on. Been there done that recently.

There may be a problem, I should have warned you: without an X session, gedit, which is I believe graphical, will probably not work. As you have no X session as yet, everything has to be done in terminal. Hopefully you will have no trouble getting a terminal up, but if you do, ctrl alt f2 then log in with username & password.
Having done that, there are other editing tools: I don't like vi, prefer nano & pico, both easy to use from terminal.
If you are simply querying your system (ddcprobe etc) just enter the command, but when you modify anything in the system directories including /etc, you need admin privilege, so always sudo before the command.
If you obtain precise information on your monitor rates, either from ddcprobe or from your manual (if you had your monitor from new) then it should be safe to change Xorg.conf. However, if you are guessing for any reason, be careful, as this may damage your monitor.
I'm giving as much info as possible now as I think we may be in different timezones & therefore not online at the same time.
Another point: when I was a newbie, I was using old monitors, and was not able to get a working ubuntu installation. At that time, Debian was recommended for older hardware, so I installed Debian 4.0. All distros have moved on since then, but I still believe Debian provides a very good introduction to Linux for new users.

I would dare say, sonichedghog, that your instructions are right on. Not complete though for a newbie like me. I believe I saw everything as it should be. I hit a brick wall though when it came to copying the file before editing. I need the exact syntax to do it. A little searching through man pages showed me the first part would be mcopy. There were no man pages for the other things. With nothing to lose, I decided to try it and hope for the best. That got me to a second wall. I experimented a little and got edit, not gedit, to show the file. Next wall is wright permission for the file.
Installing the see res thing at the beginning worked without a hitch. I assume I won't need to do that again since it is installed unless I have a major screwup and have to go back to installing Ubuntu 9.10 Which would reformat the linux info partitions.
Your instructions have come the closest yet. Good work. I should have started here:>) not newbies. Those guys were no dummies though.
Boy am I glad I copied this mess before spell checking and posting. My token had expired and I had to reload the page. PHEWWW!

This is how:
to get you into the right directory
this will show you what is now in the directory including the file you have just created
That will get you into the file you are going to edit. Lines that are for information only start with a #. When you change something, it is good practice to insert the # at the start of the line you want to remove, so you can easily restore it - this is what we mean by "commenting out"- and maybe also leave a note either on the same line or a new one after # with the date and the reason for the change, if you wish.
Another nice bit of code, once you have made your change and saved the file:
which will show you the file but won't allow changes.
Write permission? With ubuntu the main user can operate as root but only by entering sudo before the command, you are then prompted to enter your password.
Good luck.

Yeah. Gedit wouldn't work. I just jumped to edit. It was then I had to have admins privileges.
I thought when I went "drop to root from the recovery menu, It was a terminal. Or very close. Not sure if I did stick sudo in there or not on that one. Have to give that another try.
I believe I already am administrator. There are no other users besides me, but I do have to enter my password for some things. there is no other user accounts that I know of. Everytime I need to reset the clock, it would ask for my password which was only good for a limited time. That knowledge comes from other distros.
I did see a list of rates and resolutions I didn't know were available. I would stick close to 60 hertz. No way I am going to 80 hertz no matter how good it looks.
If that was your monitor in the other mess then we are running the same brand. I don't see the model number on the front, but it is a samsung syncmaster 500s on the front. an oldy but goody.
I was working on it's predecessor when I looked up to see smoke coming out of it. Rate hadn't been touched for quite a while, but yeah she was smoking. Good thing I was there or I might not be here.
I am in eastern time zone in ny. The time zone or whatever would just delay things. Or maybe make a reformat neccesary because I didn't wait for your reaction. I use to run norton's ghost. That made an image of every bite on the drive. If used carefully, make sure it is ok before you save it etc, and it would get rid of the worst virus out there because it reformated, then restored from the image. Give it 6 minutes and that bug was GONE.
Right now it is 8 pm here and time for me to put my 71 year old buns to bed.

No, that was from an older thread I was involved in, it wasn't my file. None of my old monitors were samsungs. As I say, give Debian a try if the xorg edit doesn't work. If you have hd space, a triple boot XP/ubuntu/debian is OK.
Permissions within Linux are transparent but complex to master. Each file has a set of permissions, simplest way to view these is to cd to the directory you need then . Files in /home/(your user name) typically have rwxrwxr-- but sysyem files eg in /etc have eg rwxr-xr--. You can read up, plenty of wikis available, the -- indicates that only root can write to these files. But another file /etc/sudoers gives named users extra permissions. leave that file alone for now, just put sudo before the command if something doesn't work.

Bad news. No such file or directory as x11 or xll No wonder I am having such problems. Did find /etc. xoneone or xLL, LOWER CASE
I will try reloading 9.10 from disc. If that fails I will dld something that takes control and does it all by itself. I think it is wubi 9+.10 I expect both to fail. If they do, I will dld debian.

I recall X11 (x one one) is uppercase, regret I am at my work XP system with no access to anything Linux. If you are looking for a file, there are several ways. Terminal is quicker than gui.
is there an X11? cd into it. ls again, is there xorg.conf or similar? Or:
This thread (not LQ) http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1295477 indicates that the file is still xorg.conf, but in the later Ubuntu's any manual settings may be overwritten on restart. If you find that manual settings solve your problem, but your system reverts on restart, we might investigate disabling automatic settings.
If you are changing to Debian, see http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/
My old hardware definitely worked on this now superceded release. I think I was OK with "Lenny" which is now the stable distro, but can't go back and check now. "Etch" was fine. My monitor was unable to change resolution until I updated horizsync vertrefresh and depth, but xorg.conf accepted manual settings without difficulty.

You were right. It is Xoneone
s1 is pretty, but dir gets the same results in b & w. The results are
X Xsession.dxwrapper.config default display manager xinit xresourceses xsesion.options fonts xkb xsession xumcconfig cursors rgb.txt# I don't
know how accurate I got these, but keep
that in mind for your reply if any. Is that xorg or Xorg.
Damn I wish I could access the printer on this network. It would be easier than transcribing notes. I forget what else I had to say.
There ia an X11 folder. /etc/x11. I think I might better try debian. We aren't getting anywhere very fast. If it gets the display corect I should stick with it.
My older puter has, a different g card and monitor. It has always managed to get it right. I have tried mandrake,three different ubuntus, and one other on it. It has always got it right. The only thing holding me back is the lan card quit.

Other places for your xorg.conf
/etc/X11/xinit
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit
and _just_possibly_

/etc/X11/config

After research I now know why you can't find your xorg.conf file- it's not there any more!:doh:
Although will probably generate an xorg.conf file for you, which you could then edit, I can't try this out. As a new user you might have trouble. At risk of repeating earlier advice, the first linux system I tried to install was ubuntu, which is widely reported as user-friendly for new windows converts; but it ran into trouble due to my ageing hardware (1998 self-build), and web info pointed me to several distros that reputedly work with old kit. Of these, Debian proved the most successful. The structure is similar to Ubuntu, but you need to start using terminal almost from the beginning- for example, network places are typically added by directly editing *.conf files. This is I believe better than total reliance on menus.
May I suggest you download and burn your Debian Lenny I386 32 bit iso, make sure its Ok. Then, if you feel like a last try with xorg -configure, boot into ubuntu, and go for it.
I think this process might be too difficult for a new user (and for some moderately experienced ones too! Like me) so after this attempt, see whether Debian can help you.

Are you sure that is not xorg reconfigure. I saw that somewhere. It seems to fit the situation.
I will try the debian suggestion as soon as I get a disk. I am all out.
Meanwhile, if it does wright a new config file,
would the old suggestions work with it?
I think the reason I couldn't find my way back was the title got changed and I didn't look at it quite right. I probably actually found it. Seeing the new title, I just ignored it. I hope I learned something from it.

X -configure works here.

Although earlier in this thread I was recalling my own experience, with the Xorg command I am using posts on other forums therefore less confident. It has been noted that, if /etc/X11/xorg.conf is present, settings will be loaded from it. If this is the case, then my suggestions would be worth a try. This is from the man page on my 9.10, it's netbook remix but I don't think that would affect this command:
The manual page bears no date but I guess was written several Ubuntu's ago, that plus my own lack of experience with the Xorg command means I'm not optimistic that this will work.
I have found some limited info on the x command but not x -configure. But just because I haven't found it doesn't mean it's not there... try both.

Before I forget, my grub 1st menu has a few extra lines having coming from repeated tries. What is the way to remove them.
A new install from disk didn't help anything.

In the terminal, run this:
Enter your password.
That will open your menu.lst in gedit (text editor) and then you can delete anything not needed.

I assume we are still with Ubuntu? If so there have been some changes. The file that determines what you see on boot is /boot/grub/grub.cfg. Entries may be removed by editing this file but ubuntu community documentation seems to advise against this. If I had to remove an entry (eg because the kernel it referred to had gone) I would comment out the relevant lines in that file.
But it's best to leave a working system alone. Only play with the MBR and bootloader files (includes grub.cfg) when you are confident to repair it from a live session if it won't boot.
With Debian AFAIK it's still menu.lst, but I haven't used Debian for a few months so not sure.
Edit: just saw BrianL's post.. I have checked against my own 9.10 & here it is grub.cfg- removal of redundant kernels would I think be the same but I would reiterate warning about leaving alone for now.

Aha, so it's grub.cfg now is it? I haven't tried Ubuntu since 9.04.

Yep, despite dire warning on community howto (not designed to be edited by user, even root) there doesn't appear to be a "vigrubbo" to edit it, suppose update-grub would do the syntax checking. So if I edit it, I'll leave usual ways back, copy file to master, user comments not deletion, keep ubuntu live usb/cd handy for emergency editing....

Before I forget, my grub 1st menu has a few extra lines haveing coming from repeated tries. What is the way to remove them.
A new install from disk didn't help anything.

I guess sonic that you are right. No matter what I typed to get gedit the grub menu, gtk gave me a warning display could not be opened. I wasn't going to alter it, just check out the command and look at it. I don't know why it said display though.
This system has two HDs but I am sure it wouldnt be to easy to boot from the second one. About the only way I know at this time would be go into cmos and change the boot order. I think there is an option to make the second drive boot 1st after cd and floppy.
Stupid spellchecker isn't working right. No options show to ignore etc. I always check it myself anyways.

I always used to edit menu.lst after a kernel update, removing the old kernel entries, after making sure the new kernel was working OK.

I should have put gksudo, not sudo in that command I gave you. Don't know if that will make any difference now.

If OP has same problem as originally prompted this, maybe gedit won't do it- I think it needs X working. Earlier in the thread I suggested sudo nano FILENAME, not as intuitive as gedit but since OP learned his stuff on DOS he'll be fine with it. Long thread!

Greenknight, do you still have a display problem? If so, do you need more advice on Debian install?

I'm no expert on boot records but would advise that you don't change anything until you're sure. Briefly, now you have grub installed, it's written a MBR which has directed the OS to read /etc/grub/grub.cfg for instructions. It copied any windows entry into the cfg file, and also moved the code to the end of the MBR. This is known as chainloading. It all happens on the same HD. If BIOS is directed to check another source first, unless there is a valid MBR there (cd, floppy, other HD, whatever, it will skip to the next option in the order you have set.
However grub.cfg can be set up to load a linux kernel from another HD, or another partition. If there is a windows MBR on that HD, it could even be set to chainload that.
For now, you could let the OS installer deal with your grub list. If you have redundant entries (usually previous kernel versions, or other OS's you have installed) just don't select them. If you really want to make the boot easier, you could just change the default in grub.cfg to the preferred entry.

I hope this gets to sonichedgehog and all the others who have helped be with my monitor refresh rate.
It is now a mute point as I have solved the problem. I bought a new lan card for my old 300hz computer. It has always came up ok against several diistros. Well it did it again. I am right now On the old system running Ubuntu 9.10. I am one happy camper
Oh the refresh rate is 75hertz.
The only problem is I can only access in low rez 600*800. This makes most screens to wide for the monitor and I have to scroll quite a bit. But hey, I am online using Ubuntu.