Does anyone know how to adjust the screen resolution in Ubuntu on the Toshiba Portege P4000 laptop?

The maximum I am allowed is 800x600, while the native is 1024x768.

Puppy Linux's wizard allows a manual adjustment through xorg, but there doesn't appear to be this option in Ubuntu.

Thanks.

open grub.conf and set VGA=1024x768
reboot

good luck

here is a nice tutorial
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...ing+parameters

Not sure about this tutorial as some of the responses are -ve.

I will try grub.conf when I have the patience, as I have been battling this for a couple of days, but in the meantime I will stick with Puppy which has provided me with all these options on booting the live cd.

Meridius,

were you able to install Puppy on your Portege 4000 with the proper resolution (1024 x 768)? I have the same equipment, running slugishly an XP licence and decided to move to a light Linux distribution to extend the life of thie laptop.

Yesterday I installed Lubuntu (the light version of Ubuntu) and could not configure the screen neither; I only saw a 800x600 window in my monitor: the surrounding are was simply black (as I guess it happened to you).

I'm very interested in your answer. My other option is to re-use a very old Windows 2000 license I own and download all the needed drivers from Toshiba's web... which is something I would like to avoid!

Please, let me know if you were successful!!!

Thank you very much.

Hello bleriot,

Yes I installed Puppy 431 on it, which you can get from here (it is the pup-431.iso folder):

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/...x/puppy-4.3.1/

The latest version of Puppy does not seem to pick up the wireless driver (orinoco_cs) which is located at eth1, but 431 does. You will have to go through some wizards to load the driver, but this isn't a problem. If you use it as a live cd or install just choose resolution 1024x768x16 from xorg at the startup. Don't press the TEST button as it will freeze and just proceed onwards. The only problem I have is with watching dvds on gxine 0.5.9, as they seem to skip, so if you find something else let me know.

My DVD-ROM has packed up anyway, so I had to install Puppy on another laptop and when I put the HDD in, it still picked up all the drivers. You can install OpenOffice as well as the default applications, but it's not a simple process:

http://puppylinuxnews.org/releases/o...-for-puppy-430

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=44765

If you decide to install Puppy create a swap partition and an ext2 or ext3 partition using gparted or similar first. There are wizards which take you through the whole process of installation.

I had the same problem as you with XP, i.e. sluggish. You might want to put in CCleaner and disable startup items and look at disabling some services. 2000 runs well, but did not seem to pick up the wireless driver even after installing from Toshiba. I had problems dual booting 2000 with Puppy (BSOD in 2000), but with XP this may work. It is best to install the GRUB bootloader on the MBR if you install with or without dual booting. This may take a few go's until you get it right. If you have an old Windows 98 disk or similar run or on XP (you should have an administrator password set up first) if GRUB wrecks the Windows bootloader and you want to get Windows back. Always best to install Windows first.

I gave up with Ubuntu because of the screen problem. Puppy is really a genius system which seems to install/run where others fall. With the Portege though if you are interested in Wireless choose 431 or if you are using an ethernet connection, the latest version should be ok.

Try it from the live CD first and see what you think and if you have any problems post back.

1 members found this post helpful.

Meridius,

thank you very much for your fast answer.

It looks like we both have gone through the same difficult path.

First I tried to install Win2000 following the detailed directions found in one of the Toshiba forums (the post was rather recent, so I guess it was you who asked them if it was possible!). I experienced the same problems with the wireless card.

When XP was installed, the wireless worked, so I guess the drivers for 2K weren't what they were supposed to be.

With Lubuntu (Xubuntu, Ubuntu) I had the resolution problem. I tried the solutions given in a thread somewere else but to no avail).

So yesterday I installed Puppy 5.2 and was able to solve the resolution problem. In fact I'm writing from Puppy now but using the wired connection since the wireless one is not recognized by the system...

... and decided to watch a movie... Full screen was simply impossible. A windowed play did the trick, but some frames were skipped every now and then.

So I'll follow your advice and let you know what happens. I really want this Portege working!

Concerning DVDs... did you try VLC? This is the DVD player I use everywhere (windows, any Linux flavors...)

THANK YOU VERY MUCH (yes, I'm shouting )

Hi bleriot,

Glad it's working at least in the sense of the screen resolution set up.

I haven't tried VLC in Puppy yet, but this is one of the things I intend to do once I fix my DVD-ROM. The skipping is a problem that I'm not sure how to resolve. Perhaps if you post something on the Puppy forum, someone might be able to shed light on it and why 520 does not pick up the wireless driver. I would be interested in some feedback on this myself.

Puppy for all it's strengths is a bit of a learning curve though. Installations and various processes are not as easy as Ubuntu, but you will get to understand the operating system and Linux a little better. It is also great if your hard disk breaks down as it can run very lightly in RAM.

Perhaps this post should be moved to the Puppy section...

Meridius,

this is just to confirm than installing 4.31 has worked as a charm. Now I'm writing from my old beloved Puppy 4.31 based Pórtégé 4000, using the wireless adapter.

A couple of comments:

1) Video seems to behave a little bit better (less skips) in 4.31 than in 5.2.
2) Can't get Pidgin to work with MSN because the version included in 4.31 is too old to match current Windows Live protocol. Well, this is a minor point. I can't say I use a computer to chat...

So, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your help and interest.

Bleriot

I would suggest the new ArchBang
http://archbang.org/

I have it installed on a Toshiba 7000CT Portege with 160mb RAM, 4GB HDD, 266mhz with PentiumII and it works great
I also compiled a custom PentiumII kernel from the AUR so it works even better!
I installed it from USB

Hi bleriot,

I'm sort of using it as a spare when I get fed up with the feeling of being owned by the Microsoft Corporation. It makes me enjoy computing again.

If you try it on a larger screen than the Portege it looks even better. Enjoy...

Meridius...

I did it! I have installed Lubuntu 10.10 on the Portégé 4000 and changed the resolution to 1024 x 768!

Yesterday, my Portégé froze while it was running Puppy 4.31. When I rebooted, the X system refused to boot; when I forced it to do it, my network interfaces had stopped working... so I decided that Puppy was not a safe OS to rely on.

Moreover, I decided to try once more with XUbuntu or LUbuntu and give one of the solutions to solve the resolution problem one more chance.

This morning I installed XUbuntu and, after some trial and error attempts based on a solution published I don't remember where, I could start X at 1024 x 768.

The problem was that XUbuntu is as sluggish as XP was on the Portégé, so I decided to reinstall LUbuntu, my first open-source choice. When I installed it the first time, I noticed that besides the resolution problem, it ran quite fluently, in fact, much more that Xubuntu.

The same solution I found to solve the resolution problem in XUbuntu worked as a charm in Lubuntu. Oh! BTW, Xubuntu was unable to make the sound system work. LUbuntu has no problems at all!!! I haven't checked every widget and gadget (as for instance, infrared) but the sound, USB connections, wireless, resolution... work very well.

So I reccomend you to try it.

Below, my steps:

1 - Install Lubuntu.
2 - Boot and log in. Once you're in, press <Alt><Ctrl><F1> to get the first console. Log in.
3 - Execute the following command to stop the graphic interface (LUbuntu uses LXDM instead of GDM)
4 - The two previous commands stop lxdm and create a basic xorg.conf file that goes to your home directory. Now we can restart the graphics interface to work more comfortably.
5 - Switch (if not done automatically by the previous command) to the graphic interface pressing <Alt><Ctrl><F7>. Then you will have a file named xorg.conf.new in your home directory. Open it with any text editor.
6 - Open an fresh new file in a new instance of any text editor, paste the text below and save it as xorg.conf in your home directory.
(WARNING: Do not forget to copy the last "intro" after the last EndSection command)

7 - In fact, the file you have just saved is exactly the one I'm using. I suggest you to compare the xorg.conf.new file created with sudo X -configure with this one. This is what I did.

Essentially, I removed three sections that were incorrectly generated by "sudo X - configure" (those related to the monitor and screen and another one that made X stall and whose purpose I have no idea about) and replaced these (screen and monitor) by the contents of an example I found on the internet. I had to tweak the new monitor section a bit because the internet example included a mistake.

So, basicly, the xorg.conf file I have include should work at once. If not, just compare the sections that are VERY similar and adjust xorg.conf with the values found in xorg.conf.new. Those sections that are missing in xorg.conf or that are radically different, should not be modified.

So the next step is to stop again the graphics interface. Move again to the first console window (<Alt><Ctrl><F1>) and enter the following commands:
This should do the trick. If not, go back to the first console, stop the lxdm, remove the xorg.conf file in /etc/X11, restart the lxdm and tweak the xorg.conf file in your home directory.

I insist: it works as a charm for me.

I hope it does for you too.

Bleriot.

Thanks bleriot - I will use your notes as a reference and once I get a new DVD-ROM, may just try again.

Meridius,

DON'T install Lubuntu 10.10. I thought that the wireless worked, but it doesn't.

When you boot, you may see the list of available wifi networks. This is what made me think that the wireless problem was solved.

However, when you try to connect, it does not work. You go through the usual, ubuntu-based steps to connect (selecting the network, typing the password, etc.) so everything looks as normal as ever... but then the connection always times out. No matter how many times you try, the result is the same.

I even tried to remove the WPA protection from my router to see if it was a problem related to authentication. No luck. Even with open networks the connection never finishes.

However, someone in the murga forums told me how to solve this very same problem with Puppy 5.2. I'll try this afternoon and keep you updated.

Just in case you want to check this solution by yourself, take a look here. To be more specific, look at the latest post by tempestuous in page 2.

Bleriot.

That's interesting. When I tried Ubuntu 8.04 & 9.10, I didn't have those problems, but only the screen resolution. Maybe Lubuntu 10.10 wireless is somewhat different to Ubuntu.

In Puppy 5.2 it is an issue.

Keep me posted.