Changing display resolution

[Mark Greenwood]

On Monday 25 May 2009 14:32:05 Derek Broughton wrote:
> Jerry Lapham wrote:
> 
> > 
> > That did work.  Thanks.  I'm writing this from Kubuntu 9.04/KDE 4.2.2. 
> > Seems kind of sad that Kubuntu needs Mandriva to do their work for them.
> > :-(
> 
> How?  Does it never occur to you that the reverse works too?  This is Linux 
> - we're all borrowing from each other.  xorg (and xfree86 before it) have 
> always had these problems.  One distro gets particular hardware to work, and 
> people rave that it's the One True System.  The Debian/Ubuntu method is 
> probably working for more hardware in the end - and is much simpler - but 
> there are always going to be devices that have the odd problem.  So whatever 
> Mandriva did worked for your hardware - problem solved.  And _exactly_ why 
> you don't think the problem's getting enough attention from Kubuntu devs - 
> it's got a simple workaround.

I hardly think installing a different OS is a "simple workaround".

As far as the 6 PCs I have here goes, the Debian/Ubuntu way has worked properly on one of them (a PPC Macintosh!).. all the others have had issues of one kind or another.

It seems to me from the poking around I've done that the Debian/Ubuntu way seems to be to do absolutely nothing - i.e. leave Xorg.conf empty. The Mandriva way is to configure it fully at setup, and provide GUI tools to tweak it when it doesn't work. The Mandriva way gives the user a chance if the default config doesn't work. The Debain/Ubuntu way gives the user no chance at all unless they're familiar with editing xorg.conf from scratch. In that sense then, Mandriva is "doing Kubuntu's work for them", since Kubuntu does nothing and provides no tools and it's necessary to install another OS to get around this shortcoming.

All that said, I must say I've found Kubuntu (9.04) works better *when it works* - but getting it to the "it works" stage often involves a lot of frustration and head scratching that should not be necessary (and indeed was not necessary in Hardy or Intrepid on the same hardware).

Mark

> -- 
> derek
> 
> 
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