Edubuntu Thin Client Login Screen has bad Resolution

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

On Sat, 07 Jul 2007, Phoenixink wrote:

> I have been looking for information on how to set the login screen
> resolution of a thin client but have been unsuccessful.

Most settings specific to a particular thin client are made in 

/opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf

there is documentation on the parameters you can use in this directory.

/opt/ltsp/i386/usr/share/doc/ltsp-client/examples/

There doesn't seem to be a parameter for directly setting the resolution.
You can over-ride the entire X settings though via the XF86CONFIG_FILE
parameter.  I'll explain this below.  Unfortunately the instructions are a
bit involved.

> The default login screen resolution seems to be to high for the client
> card/monitor. It looks like it may be at 1600x1200.  

First of all, I'd set the root password on your thin client, as explained
here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EdubuntuFAQ?action=show#head-285f03d2d3ed2f29847c7793dbdb8f1488814c1b

Then, retrieve the thin client's xorg config as follows:

1. Go to the thin client and press <ctrl><alt><F1> to get a text console.
2. Login using the username "root" and the password you set above.
3. Type
	scp /etc/X11/xorg.conf phoenixink at 192.168.1.254:

which will copy the thin client's X config to your home directory on the
server (you may need to change your username and the ip address of your
server in the above).

Back on the server (press <ctrl><alt><F7> to leave the text console), you
can use a text editor to open the xorg.conf which is now in your home
directory.  You should see a bunch of sections like this:

	SubSection "Display"
		Depth		24
		Modes		"1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection

The above means that when using 24-bit colour (the DefaultDepth line will
tell you what colour depth it uses), my system defaults to 1280x1024.  By
removing the 1280x1024, I can make it default to 1024x768.  Remove the
1600x1200.  

Now copy the client-specific xorg.conf where the thin client can see it

	sudo cp xorg.conf /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/X11/xorg.conf.not1600x1200

and edit /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf, putting in a section:

[00:10:B5:A8:78:3C]
	XF86CONFIG_FILE=/etc/X11/xorg.conf.not1600x1200

which will instruct the thin client with MAC address 00:10:B5:A8:78:3C to
use your custom X config file.

If you reboot the thin client now, it should (hopefully) use the new config
and the lower resolution by default.

Let us know how you get on,

Gavin

PS perhaps there's a better way to do this that I'm not aware of but this
is unreasonably complex for a straightforward request, perhaps we should
request a resolution parameter be added to lts.conf?