Reseting Display via CLI

[Andy Figueroa]

On 05/01/2010 08:29 AM, Steve Wu wrote:
> Rather than go into how I messed things up, I'd like to see if anyone
> can help with a fix. I have a Edubuntu 8.04 server that I have managed
> to mess up the display settings so I cannot manage my thin clients at
> all. The admin account has a GUI display that is unusable - too low of a
> resolution and the top menu bar is on the right side with only
> "Applications" visible.
> 
> Can I reset the display settings via the CLI, or how do I reset my
> display settings so it's usable again?
> 
> Many thanks in advance!
> 
> - Steve

Steve, in the CLI you can edit /home/userid/.gnome2/monitors.xml so it looks
like this:

<configuration>
    <clone>no</clone>
    <output name="default">
        <vendor>???</vendor>
        <product>0x0000</product>
        <serial>0x00000000</serial>
        <width>1024</width>
        <height>768</height>
        <rate>60</rate>
        <x>0</x>
        <y>0</y>
        <rotation>normal</rotation>
        <reflect_x>no</reflect_x>
        <reflect_y>no</reflect_y>
    </output>
</configuration>

This will give you a generic configuration that should work on most
monitors, but if not, you can adjust the width, height, and rate numbers
till you get at least a minimal working setup.

I keep this file around in our server's root directory so after disaster
strikes, I can copy it into any user's, .gnome2 directory.  After all, kids
will be kids.

Andy Figueroa