1280 x 800 video

[Derek Broughton]

After much hassle, and the suggestion from someone here to use gtf, I got my
Dell Inspiron to display 1280 x 800 (the native resolution when I started
it up in Windows).

However, kdm comes up in a 1280x800 _virtual_ screen, on 1024x768 physical
pixels.  Then when I log in, I have to manually switch it to 1024x768 to
make the physical and virtual screens match, then set it back to 1280x800
to make it _really_ show the widescreen format.

What do I need to do to make the monitor automatically show 1280x800?

Also, it seems I always had Ctrl-Alt-+ and Ctrl-Alt-- to change the desktop
size in Debian (though, since I rarely used it, perhaps it wasn't always
there).  How come this doesn't work in Kubuntu?
-- 
derek