Mozilla display issue....
 

I just compiled mozilla on my BSD machine here. It compiled just fine and it does work. But, there is a problem with it. As soon as it is opened up, the colors of my screen change completely. Not just the area occupied by mozilla, but the entire screen includung the kde menu, icons, etc. This really has me stumped. Any ideas?

perhaps somehow everything has adopted the mozilla fonts?

hard to say exactly.

if you change the fonts in mozilla, i wonder if the kde fonts will change

What is the color depth in which you are running your X server?

It sounds to me as if you have the old "too few colors available for the colormap" problem.

It is running at the default color depth. The screen resolution is 1024 x 768.

It could quite possibly be a color depth issue. Problem is, I dont know how to change it. Even in the advanced more of xf86cfg, there is no option to change the color depth.

BUT what is the default colour depth?


In your X terminal emulation window (xterm, rxvt, konsole, whatever)
type the command

xwininfo

and click the mouse anywhere.

In the output of the command, look for the lines


Depth: [what numeric value lies here?]
Visual Class: TrueColor


In your /etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file
look for the section

Section "Screen"

and the entry

DefaultColorDepth [what numeric value lies here]


The way to change your DefaultColorDepth is to change the value in
the file above. Usual color depth values in /etc/X11/XF86Config
are 8, 16, and 24. Whether or not the values of 16 and 24 work,
depend on the color depths supported by both your video card and monitor.

In other words, check the documentation for your video card and monitor
to see if you can use the preferrable value of 24. Improper setting of
this value will result in X not starting at all. Furthermore the modelines
will not necessarily work at higher refresh frequencies at higher color depths,
depending on the capabilities of your monitor and video card.

For Debian

xf86cfg - Graphical configuration tool for XFree86 4.0
xf86config - generate an XF86Config file

and do not forget xvidtune for fine tuning afterwards.


P.S. In xf86cfg EXPERT MODE under SCREEN, there is indeed a
text entry area to change the DEFAULT COLOR DEPTH.

Running xwininfo tells me the color depth is set at 8. I want to edit the x11 config file, but I can't seem to find it. There are no files in the etc/X11 folder and it is not in /usr/x11r6/etc either. I'm wondering where it could be. lol

This is on my BSD machine btw.

Ok....I found the config file is written to /usr/x11r6/lib/x11. Upon editing it, the screeen section looks like this:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Card0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Now, I'm unsure how to edit this to force it to a higher color depth.

So as we suspected your color depth was only set to 8 which mean you could only see 256 different colors on your screen at any one time.

The line to insert is

DefaultColorDepth 24

after the Monitor line and before the first Subsection "Display" line

And you did check your manual for video card and monitor
that they support a color depth better than 8, viz 24?

How come your XF86Config file is not in /etc/X11/?

Under which OS are you doing this change?

SO I should just delete all the other colordepth entries leaving that one?

I'm sure my monitor and video card will support it.

I have no idea why it is not in that folder. The xf86cfg utilty wrote the configuration to /usr/x11r6/lib/x11 by default.

This machine is running freebsd 5.1 (unstable).

No leave the other ColorDepth entries alone -- you will need them if you need to switch ColorDepths in future.

You add a single line

DefaultColorDepth 24

immediately after the Monitor line, as I stated previously.

You will also need to have a section for this ColorDepth with an appropriate mode line.

And it is no good saying I think my monitor will support it.
You must always check.

The most critical section of the XF86Config file is the horizontal and vertical frequency ranges. Specifying too high a maximum value for either of these and then using a modeline at too high a frequency will result in the worst case scenario of your monitor overloading, burning out, and going up in flames!

That is why it is essential to use the values provided for your monitor model (either from the documentation supplied with your monitor) or
from an exact corresponding model supplied value in the xf86config program.

Incidentally, have you operated this monitor and video card under
Windoze, since under the Display section, you get information
about number of colors (corresponding to color depth) and under
the advanced button information about refresh frequencies.

Hope this helps, but please exercise caution when modifying your XF86Config file.

Have you had a look under /usr/share/doc (or wherever BSD keeps its
document files) for the HOWTO folder and the XF86 config HOWTO?

I added that line to the config file and restarted x. Everything is working fine now. Thanks for the help:D

Hey, excellent another BSD success story!

Don't forget to try xvidtune to tweak your modelines for getting the best fit of
your display on your monitor.

I spent hours tweaking it with the configuration utility when I first set up x. I ran xvidtune and it seems I already had it set at the best settings. I'm such a perfectionist:D