[Insert Distro Here] makes the screen off one side of the monitor!
 

Ever since I did Redhat 9 (my first Linux install ever!) I found out that Linux monitor settings have the screen over to one side. This problem is not a Windows problem, because when I ran Ubuntu PPC on an iMac it did the same thing! And what made it worse was you can't adjust an iMac monitor because it's all done in the OS(9). I have ran every possible distribution, back, forth, new, and old! They ALL do it! And I've used dozens of monitors, from 15" - 19" CRT to 17" and 19" LCD! How am I supposed to fix? It's really bad when one or two letters are always missing on the left side and you need to see those letters!

I know what you will say, why not adjust the monitor? Well, I will always be adjusting the monitor because then I turn on a Windows computer and it's too far to the right! Plus if it's Linux on iMac you can't adjust the screen because there is no way to do so!

Why not have these monitor timings fixed once and for all?! It's been a decade since Linux has been a useful alternative, but the inconsistent quality is a real backstabber when you are trying to make a Linux Desktop system that's easy to set up!

Lol, i get that problem too, haha, i just auto adjust the monitor. I'm back to using windows these days b/c of gaming, as well as school programs, like photoshop and macromedia studio. But I was always adjusting my monitor when i was using linux. Fun stuff. Then u get the ocassional resolution issues etc.

I've not had a video issue like that that couldn't be resolved. (RH5 - to Current Distro).. are you sure the monitor refresh rates are correctly set in your xorg.conf ?

Worst problem I run into is trying to run a resolution that is too high for the old 14 inch monitors... had one the other day that was 640x480 max.. ouch.

Refresh is fine, but as far as I can tell the default horizontal rates make the screen too far to the left! It happens on every system I try out of the box on every monitor that uses VGA on every distro and every graphics card (Intel NV ATi SiS you name it!) regardless! You probably don't notice it because you adjusted your monitor, but the point is that if you dual-boot or use more than one PC it's Auto adjust Auto adjust Auto adjust Auto adjust Auto adjust Auto adjust Auto adjust all the time when switching back and forth between different OS. (or in the case of CRT screen right screen left screen right screen left screen right screen left).

so if you have entered the horizontal rates for the monitor provided in the manufacturers specs, and the image is still off centered then your monitor or video card must be defective..

I have a computer that does that. The solution for me was to install the various distros in video safe mode - for some reason doing that solved my problems: I don't know if it's applicable for you.

I've had this happen with CRT's, but never an LCD. I did find when the resolution, refresh and sync are the same between OS's it isn't a problem in most cases.

DVI does not have that problem because it is not converting to an analog signal. My LCD on the VGA has this discrepancy, but not on DVI.

The fact remains that the default sync rates are skewed from the "normal" sync rates used by VGA monitors new and old.

And this is not one computer, it's 7 computers, 6 different monitors, and 8 different Video cards, spanning 6 years of Linux distros from Redhats to Slackwares and even Debians and Ubuntus!

You must have terrible luck, I have had this happen once, with a Voodoo 3 PCI card switching between Windows 98 and Red Hat 6.1 many years ago, with the drivers available at the time it was nearly impossible to get the refresh and sync rates to match between OS's.

I only recently got an LCD monitor connected by DVI, before this I had Trinitron CRT's and as long as I had the settings exactly the same between OS's, there was no issue.

In every OS I ever used with a CRT, changing the refresh rate would require the screen to be adjusted. If I change from 75hz to 85hz on one of my remaining CRT's, even in Windows, the picture shifts to the left about 1/2".

i recently installed debian on a old G3 iMac, and i had the same problem with the screen being set a little off to the right. luckily, i did a search for "adjust screen debian g3 iMac" lo, and behold...a little app called xvidtune. the only thing that it doesnt have is rotation, but for what its worth, it will move your screen back to the correct horizontal or vertical position.