screen resolution
 

I can only get 800x600 screen res. I have nvidia drivers installed and rebooted and all. I set the monitor to generic LCD, 1280x800.

Any tips?

Start by posting what distro, including ver., you are having trouble w/. Posting in the MEPIS sub-forum is no guarantee to us that this is a MEPIS question -- especially when your profile only mentions Debian.

Next, tell us how you have already tried to help yourself.

How old is your installation?

Thanks. Well I have installed the newest Mepsis, 8.0.10, I think, and updated that to the latest packages. I went into the Mepsis Xconfig menu, told it to use the newest nvidia driver, which it duly downloaded. But there is no change. I stay at max 800x600.

I installed Mepsis because I was told it is good for non-experts.

I have an Asus X50GL Laptop with nvidia graphics card.

This screen has 1280x800 max res.

I tried to install the newest nvidia drivers for Linux, the 190.42. As root I ran telinit 3, then went to /home/peter/Desktop, where the script is. But it won't run, even as root. 'Permision denied' I have done the same on Ubuntu with success.

nvidia graphics
 

I have found that with the nvidia and ATI drivers, sometimes the native Mepis tools work, and sometimes they don't.
You might try the sgfxi script available with complete instructions here. I have had good luck with it on a number of Mepis installations.

Luck!

If root can't run a script, who can??

Warning: I am forced to keep using SimplyMEPIS 7 for a while longer, so I am not looking at 8 while I write this.

In 7, I don't know a "Mepsis Xconfig menu", do you mean the "MEPIS X-Windows Assistant"? It can be opened w/: [Alt-F2] kdesu mxconfig

Has your MEPIS 8 installation ever provided 1280x800 res.? Especially did you get it from the live CD when you installed? If not, you could re-boot your computer w/ the MEPIS install disk & make sure to tell it about the 1280x800 res. w/ the F2 or F3 key in the boot menu.

If you can make the install disk use 1280x800, then you should be able to fix the installation w/ the MEPIS X-Windows Assistant.

If you're up to it, "Plan B" is to copy the live CD's working /etc/X11/xorg.conf to your hard drive or to a USB drive. Make sure you don't overwrite anything w/o backing it up.

Permissions
 

No one, if the execute bit is not set. To find out, do where /path/to/filename is the (you guessed it!) path to the file in question.