Just thought I would pop in here to see how it's going. It's nice to see that this thread is still on topic, and still making some progress.

Good luck guys

How mike you solved your problem? Tell us ;-)))

Hi gokussj, Thanks for asking. I stumbled across another thread that was about my video card (ATI All In Wonder,) which has svideo-in and out ports, as well as a cable-in port; so I can view TV channels on the monitor (for example, I can set the wallpaper to channel 48!), and I can send the computer's video signal to the television via the svideo-out port (for a slide show of my pictures, etc.)

Well, the thread I found said that for XFree to function with this video card, I had to unplug the svideo-out connector. The person who wrote this also commented how bizarre it seemed, but it worked for him. Sure enough, it worked for me too! Now I just don't have the full functionality of the video card.

-Mike

ok i was typing this yesterday and i tried to go to vc2 and x crashed. weird.

anyway, i tried it but it's not cooperating... and for some reason the ctrl+alt+'+' isn't working at all. I kind of made a new problem to fix... this is a dell dimension, with the [lame] 810e chipset, and intel's XF86 driver was for the wrong version so it's running on "duct tape and a prayer." when i get home, i'll try it on a TNT2 which never fails to deliver.

I tried using alternate screens-- defined in the cfg and specified on the command line, but no go. I tried alternate serverlayouts the same way, with layout2 pointing to screen2, and that -layout name option-- and still no go. i tried setting up a 'dummy' device to use in screen2, that is-- another card ("Device" Section) with the same driver, "i810", and a different identifier, "Intel 810b." No good.

I gave up after making a second cfg and specifying that with the -xf86config filename switch, it did the same thing again. I think that maybe since my ctrl/alt/+ switching is broken then it won't matter and that's why. It seems pretty dumb to have a whole configfile with no resolutions but 640x480 and it keeps coming up in 1152x864.

Will try again later. If i ever fix the hot-switching thing, i'll try it here and make sure it works... good thing that in a few weeks we're retiring the 810 in favor of a Via!!

ok, that was not me. well, that was me, but the other dude had a cookie... since i'm back in XP. yehaaa.

Skiss420, for any HEAVY problem: kill all your XF86Config files (BACKUPPING they) and then XFree86 -configure.

I'M skiss420 right there, but skiss420 was logged in. and it looks like i'll have to do that...

ok! progress finally

my res problem was this: i wasn't even in 1152x864, it just seemed like it. it was actually 1024x768, because that's the only resolution X would start in after i forced it to a 70hz refresh. so all the detected VESA modes were rejected, having their "sync out of range". SO it's fixed and i can swap resolutions again, and it certainly does explain why i could'nt even specify 640x480-- it wouldn't do that at 70Hz.

more good news: the -screen switch works now. i have 2 screen sections: one with all the res's typically used (the usual) and one with only 800x600 and 640x480. the new one has a permanent desktop of 800x600, which can zoom in to 640x480 (as usual). The next thing i do is fix up the changer scripts, first seeing if i can even find them... this ought to be fun

So, with many screen sections you can change withouth problems Linux resolution? A question, please: but you cannot change from within Linux, you must return to login, right?

Xcon another question please: you have forced 70 Hz, in which way? With Modeline? VESA resolution of your monitor doesn't work with 70 Hz? Why you do not select 75 Hz, 1024 doesn't support it?

yes, you have to kill the X server and return to the login, it seems to be the only way for X to re-configure itself. it looks hopeless to do otherwise without rewriting X...

i had no luck finding init scripts of the proper variety. I found the login manager entries for gdm and xdm inside /etc/X11, but no kdm... that sucks for me, since kdm is the default login gui for mandrake and i don't know how to change it nor feel like doing so. it's somewhere. i found the login manager config under the System group in KDE Control Center, but while it lets you add and remove session types as well as rearrange them in the menu, there was no option to define the commands. Bummer.

Anyone know what I'm looking for? I need to call up a script which I can probably write with little difficulty but I need to call it from each of those menus(kdm, gdm, xdm); it also needs to restart the current X server. I guess I was wrong about the X server respawning automatically, but one can always hit Ctrl+Alt+Bksp. Finding and killing the right server's process is a bit harder, say if you have 3 gui's up and running-- but it can be done.

when the script is written, all it has to do is take a XxY value from the command line and do a quick rename of the pre-configured XF86Config-4 files. Don't use the plain XF86Config, BTW. if you edit it, your changes will mysteriously not appear.... anyway, you have 1 cfg file for each desktop and the current desktop is the original filename. The other files are named something obvious like XF86Config-4.1280x1024, XF86Config-4.800x600, etc. All that's left to do is put the menu entries in which you run chdesktopsize -RESXxRESY (instead of startkde) and it renames the files. Simple, no?

it was easy to fix, on the VRefresh or Vertical Refresh line it has a range, i replaced 50-120 with just 70 (i didn't think to use 75). Although, if i want higher than 60Hz permanently, i could just set it to 70-120. why i didn't already is beyond me... what's the word? thinko? must be the XP-induced drain bamage

I think if someone ever will need an information about changing resolution, he will find enough here

regards Nautilus

itismike ; not sure if its using that file or not ill check .. just to be sure tell me how you would check...also the screen size is Huge !!the mouse pointer is like 3/4 of an inch big its drivin me nuts thanks for the reply

Bluefox, that's a good question. One way would be to rename the file and see if you get an error or if X makes another file to replace it the next time you start X.

-Mike

i found out about that respawning X server script... it's not calling X, in mandrake it calls /etc/X11/prefdm , a script that fires up the preferred display manager. The display managers, gdm/kdm/xdm, are responsible for calling X. i hunted down enough information to fix gdm, to make it work. i also found out how to make gdm start as many servers as you want with their own configurations! imagine having (up to?)6 graphical logins ready to go upon entering runlevel 5. each can have any monitor, any keyboard, any graphics card, any mouse, any configuration of any of the above, and they just wait for you to go log in via Ctrl+Alt+F7...F12

it's easy enough to do in gdm, so i might switch over from kdm. it has many more options that I like over kdm, and xdm is kind of bare... but that can be good too.

the way to do it is either run gdm, go to config in the system menu, and provide root's password, or edit /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf (i use both)... this calls for a HOWTO, as I can't go deeply into it within the thread. And I can't write it yet since i'm 2 weeks behind in one class and still have a broken XP to fix. as soon as i get all the same detailed info for kdm and xdm, i'll write it up and then whenever anyone asks for help changing resolutions, well, i'll look for an existing HOWTO and if it's any good I'll append to it... in the end, the method for changing the desktop size will be either editing or replacing XF86Config-4, since all attempts to make it depend on a convenient environment variable have failed.