how to change monitor from 1024 to 800 at command line

learnfast · 04-01-2005, 02:20 AM

- I installed RHEL3 in a virtual machine.

- My experience is that ALL linux distributions have a problem of not being able to use anything over 800 x 600 in a virtual machine. Perhaps vmware tools fixes this but I have never been able to install it on linux.

- Anyway, so in the RHEL3 GUI (KDE) I changed the resolution from 800 to 1024, logged out, logged in and now it says in a text window:

"I cannot start the X Server. I will disable it until it is configured correctly"

- But now I can only log in at the command line, it won't go into the GUI until fix the monitor settings to a resolution it can handle.

SO... how can I change the monitor settings from 1024 back to 800 AT THE COMMAND LINE?

Thanks,

nukkel · 04-01-2005, 02:41 AM

As root, do

Code:

X -configure

let it finish then do

Code:

X -xf86config XF86Config.new

this should hopefully get you back in graphical mode so you can run the gui configurator again...

Under VMware I am able to get high resolutions, however you need to install the vmware-tools... so alternatively you can try this (you can do this from the command line):

First go in the VMware menu and do "install vmware tools...".
Then in the linux virtual machine do

Code:

mount /mnt/cdrom (depending on your distro, this might also be mount /cdrom)
tar zxf /mnt/cdrom/vmware-linux-tools.tar.gz

this should give no error messages; proceed with

Code:

cd /vmware-tools-distrib
perl vmware-install.pl

Then follow the steps. I hope all filenames are still the same 'cos I have a slightly old VMware version.
If all is well it will have auto-adapted the graphical configuration and you'll be able to choose higher resolutions! I myself use 1280x1024 without any trouble!

Hope this works for you!
nukkel

learnfast · 04-01-2005, 05:30 AM

Excellent, that gave me the confidence to keep on trying, was a weird problem where the CD was not recognized, finally got it by continually "VM|Install VMware Tools..." and mounting.

Now I have two Linux machines running as WMs at 1152x864.

Thanks!

nukkel · 04-08-2005, 03:45 PM

Great, good to hear you got it working!
When using multiple VMs at once, make sure you have lots of ram (>256)

! vmware can get a bit slow otherwise (swapping)

Oh and now there should also be a small gui vmware tool in the linux VM where you can change some minor settings... but i don't remember the name of the command to run it

cheers,
nukkel