U11.10 Screen Refresh Rate

[Colin Law]

On 27 September 2011 10:41, Alan Pope <alan at popey.com> wrote:
> On 27 September 2011 10:37, Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> I have lost track of the thread a bit, but I thought that normally
>> there is no such file.  Certainly I have not got one.  Not that I need
>> to change my refresh rate I am just following this as a learning
>> exercise.
>>
>
> There isn't an xorg.conf by default because (for some time now) X has
> been able to automagically figure out what you want, and start up
> without one. That doesn't mean it gets it right 100% of the time
> though. As such we help X along a bit by giving it some config in
> /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Examples of things that we use xorg.conf to
> configure today include refresh rates, wacom tablet config, twinview
> multiple monitor support, suppression of vendor logo on X start,
> forced resolution options and so on.

That is what I thought, so saying the solution is just to edit the
file is a bit of an oversimplification.  It is not just a matter of
editing a file, finding the line that says RefreshRate or similar and
changing the number.  It is a matter of understanding the syntax of
the file and knowing what to put in it in order to  set the refresh
rate.  Or is there a way of asking the system to generate a default
one matching the system so that one can just edit it?  Am I correct in
thinking that one can actually damage the hardware if one gets the
file horribly wrong?

I have not seen any explanation anywhere as to why the option to set
refresh rate has been removed from the gui.

Colin