Ok, just installed xubuntu on an old box, with a huge 32" crt type screen. The fonts are so small writing doesn't look like writing, it's just a squiggly line. Ok, no problem, I'll just open up X11/xorg.conf, and edit it quick so the largest resolution available is 800x600, so I can read the options in the settings manager to fix it via the gui, the way the xubuntu/ubuntu/kubuntu overlords seem to think you should change it. Anyone know where this is going yet ? YOU CAN'T !!! Ok, edit grub and specify a resolution. Doesn't work either. Well lovely. One of the guiding principles of Linux has always been config files have always been text files. So anyone can edit them easily. Some other wildly disparaged operating system auto configs everything with a gui. That approach doesn't work very well if the gui config if broken now does it ? So how does hardy xubuntu config the video resolution ? VIA THE GUI !!!!!!!!!!! brilliant. If I wanted windows95 I would have used it. Please please please please go back to text files. Please. They won't though. If we are going to make all the same mistakes as windows does, why bother to use linux in the first place ?

So can anyone tell me how to solve this chicken/egg problem, because the answer isn't in xorg.conf. Which sort of makes me wonder what the hell xorg.conf is for now ? If you con't config X11 there, what the hell is it doing there ?

/rant

Thanks much....

David

Indeed, GUI configuration tools will do just one thing: change the conf file. So you're on the right way if you make changes of conf file manually. I don't know why your configuration file doesn't work. Please provide us more details.

There aren't any details in xorg.conf. It just says "configured monitor", but xorg.conf doesn't have any of the configs in it ? Am I making any sense ? I do prefer to config most things with vim, in the config file itself. With hardy, x configs itself now, with no details in xorg.conf. Am I making sense now ? I seem to be saying the same thing over and over again in different ways.

I reinstalled xubuntu 7.10, to get an xorg.conf I could edit myself, and I did. I have 800X600 now, but the font size is still way too damn small. Can anyone tell me where I can change the default desktop/application font sizes in xubuntu ? I've changed them in firefox, but only because I know where they are in firefox. I'm a fluxbox/kde guy, I don't know where stuff is in xfce, and the text is too small to find it. Hardy has been a step back I think. Auto config for x, with adjustments via the gui is great, if it works, but it doesn't, at least in my case, leaving me with little I can do but install a previous version that works. Remind anyone of vista/xp ?

If your problem is small font only, you could find font-configuration in "System->Preferences->Appearance". It could be different in xubuntu, but finding "Appearance" is not difficult. Then you can see the current theme with a button "Customize". Click, and you'll see the font-configuration tab. Wish you luck .

Well, thank you for taking the time to reply. It is difficult to find when you can't read any word on any part of the OS except firefox. And this is xfce desktop. Not gnome. This box has 128 MB of ram, I don't think it would run gnome at all. I certainly couldn't get any work done on it, in any event. Which, is pretty much the situation I'm in right now anyway.

Thanks for the thought....

David