Screen resolution on a sony laptop.

[Michael Haney]

This is a known problem and there's a running debate on the bug
tracking group over this.  Essentially, previous versions of Ubuntu
had an option to manually configure your monitor settings in the
screen resolution app, but as of 8.10 that feature was removed and
X.org performed auto-configuration detected of your video card and
monitor at setup.  When X.org cannot detect what refresh rates and
resolution modes your monitor is able to handle the software falls
back on a fail safe option which locks your resolution to 800x600.
Then the screen resolution is locked at 640x480 if you enable the
drivers of your Nvidia or ATI graphics card.  There is no simple
method to change the monitor configuration after X.org as done the
auto-configuration, in fact the only method known to work isn't
something most Linux novices can do on their own easily.

Its a serious problem that sadly isn't being taken seriously, which is
an insult to all who love Ubuntu and want to see more people adopt it.
 This problem is negatively impacting Ubuntu's image as a
user-friendly Linux distribution, and that is totally unacceptable.
The call to have manual monitor configuration added to the new screen
resolution app in Ubuntu is picking up steam, though.  A lot of users
are very upset (pissed is more like it) that this feature was removed
and it is generally accepted that relying totally on X.org's
auto-configuration was a bad move by the development community
especially when it comes to something as vitally essential as the
display.

The ONLY easy fix I know of that MIGHT work is to install an older
version of Ubuntu, change the monitor settings manually in the screen
resolution app and make a copy of the new X.org configuration file
which is usually found at ...

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

Then when you install the current version as sudo overwrite the curent
xorg.conf file and reboot.  The monitor settings should take and you
should be able to use the appropriate screen resolutions.  if this
doesn't work and anyone knows of a better way please post it here with
detailed step-by-step instruction for us newbies.  Thank you.

-- 
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch at gmail.com
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