I have inherited a large-screen ViewSonic LCD display for use as the console on a server I'm running. I'd like to use it at its native resolution (1600x1200), but no matter what I do to /etc/X11/xorg.conf I continue to get 1024x768. (I hooked the display up to a laptop running
Vista and got 1600x1200, so it's not broken.)

I've been researching this question for a couple of months now, and while I can find references to this display, and references to changing resolution on displays by changing xorg.conf, I haven't been able to find anything to explain what I've missed doing so that said changes actually take effect.

Which chicken do I need to sacrifice?

The maximum resolution is dependent on the monitor and video card. It may be a stupid question but are you sure your video adapter supports 1600x1200 ?

What video card, drivers and monitor are you using? Some Xorg drivers (eg the proprietary ATI fglrx drivers, sometimes) don't like certain resolutions even though the hardware is capable of it and other drivers on the same hardware can use them.

Don't forget that the resolution you want to use by default comes first, for example

And don't forget that that XOrg's autodetection can be pretty useless at times, so you may want to specify the monitors HorizSync and VertRefresh manually, like in this example:

The correct values for your monitor will be in it's manual, which should be available at the manufacturer's website.

EDIT: sometimes you need to use custom modelines to get monitors to display a certain resolution. I am afraid explaining how to use them is beyond my skills at the moment.

EDIT: Could you post your xorg.conf? That might help in traking down problems.

See this post (by me, about another monitor): http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...8/#post3068386

Mine required a custom modeline to get full resolution. In that post I explain how to create one using gtf.

I went off and looked at the hardware manual for this server again (a Compaq Proliant DL580 G2) at the HP website. The on-board video controller does support 1600x1200, but at 16 bit color depth, not 24 (which I had assumed and set, stupidly). I ran cvt to get the appropriate Modeline for the monitor in xorg.conf, changed my default depth from 24 to 16, and I'm happily looking at a 1600x1200 display as I type this.

Thanks for your helpful question (even if you didn't expect quite this answer :-), and thanks to everyone else who offered debugging suggestions.

(I'm thinking about changing the framebuffer setting in /etc/fb.modes to be 1600x1200 as well, but now it's simply an experiment, not a research project.)

The fact that you described the offending hardware as a 'server' made me wonder as often dedicated server hardware won't have the video capabilities of a dedicated desktop machine - it doesn't need it obviously.

Glad to hear you get it solved..