Maybe this can be resolved some other way. If so, please let me know, but this is the only way I can think of.

I am running Mandrake 9.1 on my laptop. The laptop only has a 12" screen, so sometimes I hook up to my full-size monitor, keyboard and mouse when I'm at home. The resolution I have on my laptop monitor is 800x600 with 64K colors. When I'm hooked up to my landline monitor, it can handle 1024x768 and 16M colors. But, if I leave it on that and take my laptop off of there, the mouse goes kerflooey - it's just a large shimmering box. I can still do everything - I just have to translate the large box into a mouse cursor using the top left-hand corner as the mouse pointer. Eww...

So here's the question. Is it possible to set up hardware profiles, eg "Home" and "Away," where "Home has a resolution of 1024x768 and "Away" has a resolution of 800x600? I could restart my computer, choose the correct profile and be away. A lot easier than accessing the configuration utility with the correct password, choosing hardware, screen resolution, changing it, closing the dialog and THEN restarting.

Yes. In fact, it's far more flexible than windows version of "profiles". You'll have to edit your /etc/X11/XF86Config file (or similar), to do so. Basically, you'll set up each input & output device, then set up a "screen" selection for each setup you use. It's not always as easy, depending on your distro, as it is in windows, but once you've done it, you can do it in any distro.

Check out www.xfree86.org documents, as well as the howtos at www.tldp.org for more help on this.

I checked both those places and didn't find "profile" in a search. What am I looking for? Is the service called "switchprofile"?

Also, will the profiles I'm setting up also be able to change the SMTP settings in Ximian or do I have to keep changing those when I go back and forth to school?

I'm actually looking for similar information on RH9. I have a D600 that I'd like to have two profiles for, one in a replicator with dual monitor support and one with internal LCD screen. I've searched around and have not found any easy ways of doing this.

Your "Screen" section in the /etc/X11/XF86Config file specifies what devices XFree86 uses, and, more importantly, the resolutions and color depths. What I think scott_R is suggesting is that you make two screen sections, one for each display you have. I'm not sure how you would switch between them.
In the "Screen" section there is a subsection called "display". There are sometimes more than one, ie one for each depth. You'll find a line in these called "Modes" that has a list of resolutions after it. The first is the default resolution. All you have to do is press a simple key combination to swith between them: "ctrl"-"alt"-"+".

I'd like to switch refresh rates as well as dual monitor support.

I was thinking maybe two different XF86Config files that I can some how choose from GRUB? I come from DOS Batch days, hehe.

alan1974us,
Put a resolution for each monitor in the Mode line, in the "display" subsection, in the "Screen" section. Then adjust each to your liking using the xvidtune tool. Switch between each using the key combo.

umm...when i installed redhat i specified that my video card was 64megs when it was only 32 megs, im totally new at linux so could you please tell me how i can change it? (im a )