first, the simple problem I have, where do I go to change the refresh rate? I need to make it higher so I can set a higher resolution.

I was playing with the settings for the task bars, now when I log into the account, they look blank except for the buttons on the left and right to hide the bar. as soon as I click one of those buttons everything shows up. how can I fix this?

Matt

Desktop => Preferences => Screen Resolution should be your first stop.

If that doesn't let you do what you want you'll have to dig into /etc/X11/xorg.conf and manually change th settings there.

it's been giving me trouble with screen resolutions and refresh rates. I can't set the settings the same as my windows machine, or for that matter, any higher then 800x600 or the monitor doesn't handle it. I'm afraid to try rebooting it because I wont have the gui to change the settings back. another thing is vnc. I was hoping it would be a regular kvm software like with windows, but it just gives me a weird command prompt. I could have used that to change the display settings back but I can't view the gui with it. I'd have to dig into the config files. am I doing something wrong with my display settings and with vnc?

What distro do you use?

fedora 4, currently gnome

Are you using the default monitor or have you configured the specific monitor you use. Mine didn't appear on the list so I read the specs (esp. refresh rates) and tried using the configuration of several brands/models until I found one that suited me. The default/ no specific brand settings are very conservative.