Problems with Dapper RC1 and KDE 3.5

[Joe Hart]

I recently bought a new monitor, and now have serious problems.  It's an 
LG M1917TM, which can handle a very limited number of resolutions.  It's 
too late to take it back, so I am stuck with it.  Of course the manual 
doesn't mention much, but it does tell me sync ranges.  I have an ATI 
Radeon 9200 if that helps.

I downloaded the Dapper RC1 and tried to install it to a spare 
partition, only to find that after install when it tries to start KDE it 
changes to a resolution that my monitor can't handle.  I figured I could 
run dpkg-reconfigure to fix it, but I can't get to a console to do it. 

On my breezy partition, everything works fine except for when I try to 
ctrl-alt-F# to a different terminal.  I get a blank screen and can't get 
back to X with the ctrl-alt-F7.  Also, if I try to restart X with 
Ctrl-Alt-Bksp I get nothing.  Lastly, I can't end my session cleanly 
(can't see what the computer is doing) and/or log in as another user.  
As soon as I end my session my screen goes blank.

It is all very frustrating.  Perhaps there is a work-around that escapes me?

I have a feeling it's KDE 3.5 causing some of the problem, because I 
tried a few other distributions and had the same problem with the 
logout.  My problems could also be related to Xorg 7, but I'm not sure.  
Any ideas?

TIA,

Joe Hart

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There's always a light at the end of the tunnel, although sometimes it's 
rather difficult to see through the fog.