U11.10 Screen Refresh Rate

[Alan Pope]

On 27 September 2011 10:50, Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com> wrote:
> 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.

Sure, but most people don't ever need to change the refresh rate setting.

>  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?

sudo Xorg :1 -configure

That will generate an xorg.conf.new in your home directory. Here's the
output of me running that on my desktop (along with amusing "Error,
no, that's not an error" error message.

http://paste.ubuntu.com/697821/

Here's the resulting xorg.conf.new.

http://paste.ubuntu.com/697823/

Not brilliant :)

 > Am I correct in
> thinking that one can actually damage the hardware if one gets the
> file horribly wrong?
>

I've seen that reported, never seen anyone actually say they broke a
screen with it though.

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

Probably (at a guess) because these days people tend to use LCD panels
not CRT displays.

Al.