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Re: No luck reconfiguring resolution options.

kaldrenon wrote:

Hi all.

I'm going through the process of configuring my install of etch on a
Dell Inspiron B130, getting things set up the way I like them and
such, and I'm already snagged.

In Gnome, when I go to Desktop -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution,
the only options I get are 1024x768, 800x600, and 640x480. My monitor
is a wide screen, so not only do I want a higher resolution, but I'd
prefer a different aspect ratio.

I Googled "Debian screen resolution" and got a guide about using dpkg-
reconfigure xserver-xorg to change these settings, so I followed the
instructions, ran the reconfig, and got the option to add support for
other resolutions, which I did, After the reconfig util was done, I
rebooted. Logging back in, I went to  Desktop -> Preferences -> Screen
Resolution and found no change. I'm still running 1024x768.

I'd really appreciate it if someone could tell me how to change my
screen resolution.

TIA,
Andrew
Ag! Display settings can be a nightmare in X (as can be printer setup, sound, tv tuners, etc etc etc, but I digress...).
I think you'll do best to work on the underlying foundational settings and forget about GUI utilities for now. In such a case, all the magic is in how X and the kernel sees your hardware.
To see what your kernel sees, run "lspci" (or "lspci -v" or even "lspci -vv") and look for a line (or lines) referring to your video subsystem. This'll give you an idea of which video driver to use in X.
To specify to X what video driver to use, look in "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" (although it seems that lately, X has become "smarter" and oftentimes ignores what's in this X configuration file, which irritates me to no end). You'll see a couple of sections like: 


Section "Device"
        Identifier      "nVidia Corporation NV11DDR [GeForce2 MX200]"
        Driver          "nv"
        BusID           "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Generic Monitor"
        Option          "DPMS"
#       HorizSync       28-60
#       VertRefresh     43-60
        DisplaySize     370 271 # 1152x864 96 dpi
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Default Screen"
        Device          "nVidia Corporation NV11DDR [GeForce2 MX200]"
        Monitor         "Generic Monitor"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           1
Modes "1200x800" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" 
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           4
Modes "1200x800" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" 
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           8
Modes "1200x800" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" 
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           15
Modes "1200x800" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" 
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           16
Modes "1200x800" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" 
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           24
Modes "1200x800" "1152x864" "1152x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" 
        EndSubSection
EndSection


This is where all the magic happens (or did, before X got "smart").
The most common/likely choices for your video driver will be ati, nv, nvidia (I believe; this is the proprietary, closed-source "equivalent" (though usually necessary for some functions) of the Free equivalent of the nv driver for NVidia cards, and svga, although there are lots of other possibilities.
The svga is usually the best available lowest common denominator driver, and usually "just works" for at least a usable setup.
Playing with the HorizSync and VertRefresh will often get you better resolution, but be careful; overdriving your monitor can fry it, although most modern monitors have built-in protection nowadays against that sort of thing. 

Also playing with your DefaultDepth can give you some better options.
And if your video memory is shared with the main system, you can sometimes go into the computer's BIOS and up the shared video memory (called many different things and located in many different places depending on the BIOS, and sometimes not available at all), which almost always helps (the more video RAM, the better, in many cases).
There are lots of other settings that can affect your setup, but this little bit should get you closer to what you're after. You might also look in "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for clues as to what's happening under the hood.
btw, you don't need to reboot after making these settings; you merely need to restart X (and by implication, any graphical login managers). You can do this with Ctrl-Alt-F2, logging in as a root-capable user, and running "/etc/init.d/[gkwx]dm restart" (depending on which login manager you're using; probably "gdm" in your case). If you weren't using a login manager, you could just exit out of X and restart it with "startx". You can temporarily disable [xgkw]dm by editing /etc/init.d/[gkwx]dm and adding the single line "exit 0" as the first line; remove it later when you want to re-enable your login manager. 

Hope this doesn't seem too confusing.

--
Kent
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