Changing monitor resolution on 12.04

[James]

I wish I could be more helpful. 
I just found this stuff after spending hours scouring the Internet for a 
solution and these "incantations" worked for me.
I thought they might be helpful to others. 
I really can't contribute much else. 

I'm frustrated with all sorts of things that were “fixed” but not broke. 
Including:
   Setting my display resolution
   The ludicrous kmail2 migration abomination
   Printer drivers that no longer allow printing to my Photosmart D7160 
Phototray
   Networking configuration issues
and other things. 

I suppose I'll work through these things eventually but I still don't 
understand why all of these things, that used to work, are now 
“fixed”/”improved” and longer work/function as they used to.

>From an end-user perspective Ubuntu 10-12 have been a generational step 
backward in functionality and user-interface friendly-ness...

I could go on, but I'm not really contributing to a solution here so I'll 
shut-up now.

Heading back into the bowels and offal of migrating my mail... 

---

James

On Thursday, December 13, 2012 10:23:11 AM Jim Byrnes wrote:

> On 12/12/2012 12:31 PM, James wrote:
> > There may be an easier way but...
> > 
> > At the command prompt enter: 'xrandr'
> > 
> > Your output will resemble:
> > ---
> > Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1600 x 1200, maximum 4096 x 4096
> > VGA-1 connected 1600x1200+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
> > 0mm x 0mm
> > 
> >     1024x768       60.0
> >     800x600        60.3     56.2
> >     848x480        60.0
> >     640x480        59.9
> >     1600x1200_70.00   69.9*
> > 
> > ---
> 
> As a test I did it on my working 10.04 dual monitor setup to see what
> the output would look like.
> 
> ~\ $ xrandr
> Screen 0: minimum 3840 x 1080, current 3840 x 1080, maximum 3840 x 1080
> default connected 3840x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right) 0mm x 0mm
>     3840x1080      50.0*
> 
> > Record the DisplayDesignator in line two. (“Mine is VGA-1”)
> 
> Mine seems to be quite a bit less informative and it only displays info
> about one monitor.
> 
> > Using the documentation for your equipment, determine a valid resolution
> > and refresh rate.
> > I'm using 1600x1200 at a refresh of 70.
> > 
> > At the command prompt enter: 'cvt <res_X> <res_Y> <RefreshRate>'
> > For example: cvt 1600 1200 70
> > 
> > Your output will resemble:
> > ---
> > # 1600x1200 69.92 Hz (CVT) hsync: 87.55 kHz; pclk: 190.50 MHz
> > Modeline "1600x1200_70.00"  190.50  1600 1720 1888 2176  1200 1203 1207
> > 1252 - hsync +vsync
> > ---
> > 
> > Record the Mode and Modeline from the second line.
> > 
> > At the command prompt enter:
> > xrandr --newmode <Modeline>
> > xrandr --addmode <DisplayDesignator> <Mode>
> > xrandr --output <DisplayDesignator> --mode <Mode>
> > 
> > For example, I use:
> > xrandr --newmode "1600x1200_70.00"  190.50  1600 1720 1888 2176  1200 1203
> > 1207 1252 -hsync +vsync
> > xrandr --addmode VGA1 1600x1200_70.00
> > xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1600x1200_70.00
> > 
> > This will change your monitor resolution.
> > 
> > To make these changes permanent add the three 'xrandr' lines to end of:
> >     /etc/kde4/kdm/Xstartup
> 
> You seem to be on kde, I am on Unity/Gnome and don't seem to have a
> Xstartup file.
> 
> This got me thinking.  I have a perfectly working twinview setup on
> 10.004. I just compared the two xorg.conf files. The 10.04 one has
> references to two monitors and screens and the 12.04 one refers to only
> one.  I wonder if it is as simple as copying the 10.04 xorg.conf to
> 12.04?  Probably not but I think I will give it a try later.
> 
> Thanks,  Jim
> 
> > (Sarcastic unnecessary comment:
> >   Any modern operating system aught to be able to accomplish what Windows
> >   95
> > 
> > could do nearly 20 years ago, but I guess this is the new and improved
> > Linux.)
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