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I imagine this problem is quite common, but I couldn't find anything relevant after a few google searches.
I'll be honest, I just downloaded the latest version of Ubuntu practically minutes ago, but I have one problem I can't seem to fix. The screen resolution is really dimming my enthusiasm.
Essentially, everything is just really magnified. I fixed the desktop settings by going to Appearance Preferences, Fonts, Details and setting the resolution to 65 dots per inch. It might have been set at something like 80, but I don't recall for sure.
I noticed that if I try to make the resolution so that things appear smaller that it becomes unreadable.
Now, the desktop was successfully minimized to some degree, but the web browser is pretty far zoomed in as compared to what I'm used to with Windows. I can manually zoom out of each page a bit by going to View, Zoom, Zoom Out. I do that a few times so it looks "okay," but again the smaller I make it the more unreadable the font becomes. To make matters worse, I need to repeat the process for every web page.
Is there a way to change the default setting? And what of the terrible screen resolution?
In Display Preferences, the best listed resolution is 800 x 600. That's the largest setting, if I set it to anything smaller it literally zooms in to a very specific, confined area on the screen.
I have a 17 inch (if I remember correctly) LCD display from ViewSonic. VA1916w is listed on the top corner of my screen (on the monitor frame), if that's relevant...
According to internet ViewSonic VA1916w is 19 inch wide LCD monitor designed for resolution 1440x900 pixels.
That means if you use any other screen resolution, the monitor will have to interpolate (or extrapolate in your case) to resolution 1440x900. In many cases this process is not optimal and resulting output looks horrible (visible mainly on fonts).
So first thing to do is to adjust the resolution to 1440x900. If fonts look too small afterwards, you will have to adjust font size as well.
Only problem is, in Display Preferences it doesn't give me the option to select 1440 x 900. The largest option is 800 x 600.
Monitor is listed as "Unknown" in Display Preferences and selecting "Detect Monitors" isn't changing anything. I don't see any option to manually manipulate the dimensions.
Can you look /etc/X/xorg.conf file and have a look what's written in there (I am mainly interested in "Driver" line, but other informations may be important too)
My guess is, that you are using nvidia card and standard "nv" module does not work correctly (does not allow you correct resolution). In that case you will have to download new driver from nvidia web side. But I may be completely wrong ...
Can you look /etc/X/xorg.conf file and have a look what's written in there (I am mainly interested in "Driver" line, but other informations may be important too)
How do I get there?
Quote:
My guess is, that you are using nvidia card and standard "nv" module does not work correctly (does not allow you correct resolution). In that case you will have to download new driver from nvidia web side. But I may be completely wrong ...
I am using a Nvidia Card, and was planning on getting a second video card soon anyway because I wanted to set up a dual monitor. In that case, which Card would you recommend that would be compatible?
Which new driver would I have to download, in the meantime?
Last edited by Synergy23; 11-25-2009 at 01:31 PM.
Reason: Clarity
the easiest way to do so is using terminal. Run terminal and type
Code:
cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
It will give you a lot of lines of output. Lines beginning with # are ignored, so ignore them as well.
There should be several sections in the output, like Section "Monitor", Section "Screen", etc. Find Section "Device" (which should correctly describe your graphic card) and inside this section the line which begins with Driver. Indicate, what is written on this line (probably Drive "nv", but could be anything else).
Nvidia supports Linux. But their driver is proprietary so it cannot be part of Linux kernel. If that Driver line says anything else then Driver "nvidia", then you probably would have to go to nvidia web page and download their driver for your card (works pretty much the same way as for windows)
When choosing new graphical card I would go for Nvidia. Their support for Linux is (was?) far better then of ATI. But I am no expert on new hardware.
Hi, I just posted to the hardware conference, but my question is directly related, and perhaps you have an answer:
I'm also having a screen resolution problem.
I just installed Linux (Centos 4) and I'm using a 24" wide monitor that can handle 1920x1080 screen resolution. The monitor is manufactured by ASUS, model VK246. I believe the video card is nvidia, as indicated by lspci (shown below). Changing things in the Applications, Display GUI doesn't seem to have any effect, even after rebooting (or logging out and logging back in).
I tried to edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file in order to change the screen resolution and the horizontal refresh rat (upper range was at 67.0 now at 75, according to the specs from the monitor manufacturer). Here's the relevant bits of the xorg.conf file as it stands now:
HorizSync in a number of line synchronizating pulses per second. So if you have 1050 lines in your resolution and HorizSync range in between 31.5 and 75.0 kHz, so your VertRefresh at this resolution should be somewhere between 31000/1050=30Hz and 75000/1050=71.5Hz
VertRefresh is the actual number of screen refreshes per second. In modern monitors usually between 70 and 100Hz
Newertheless your setting seems fine to me. Check /var/lox/X11.log and look for lines starting with (EE) or (WW). Also look for part describing setting up the resolution. It might give you some hints.
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