Jesse Sheidlower skrev:
The T60 has a Radeon X1300 card; the built-in monitor runs at 1400 x 1050. I'm trying to attach a 1280 x 1024 external monitor through the VGA port. I'm running Xorg 1.7.5, and I do not have an xorg.conf at all, I'm letting Xorg generate the configuration. When I plug in the external monitor, and run Display Preferences to try to set up the two displays, I get a popup message reading "The selected configuration for displays could not be applied[:] required virtual size does not fit available size: requested=(2680,1050), minimum=(320, 200), maximum=(1400, 1400)". But the notable thing for me is that running Ubuntu 9.10, which is running Xorg 1.6.4, this Just Works, with everything else identical--same hardware, same lack of xorg.conf file, etc.
I have seen the same problem, and I know no solution that does not involve an xorg.conf file. However, I do not think it must be very hard.
When using several monitors, they all form a larger "virtual" desktop together. If you have two monitors of size 1280x1024 next to each other, the "virtual" desktop must be at least 2560x1024 for the two to fit it.
This is adjusted in the xorg.conf file, as follows:Login as root in text mode (either by booting into recovery mode, or switching with ctrl-alt-F1) and ensure your X is not running (run "/etc/init.d/gdm stop" if you are using a standard gnome desktop).
Then run "Xorg -configure". This should create a file xorg.conf.new with contents suited to your hardware.
Now open that file in a text-editor and look for a "Screen" section to which you add a "Display" section, as shown in this example I found on the internet:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express
Integrated Graphics Controller"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
# ADD A VIRTUAL LINE TO PROVIDE FOR THE LARGEST SCREENS YOU
WILL HOTPLUG
Virtual 2048 2048
EndSubSection
EndSection
Some more information is available on the man page (man xorg.conf).
From the error message you quoted, you may want to choose at least
Virtual 2680 1050
in your configuration.
Now save the file as /etc/X11/xorg.conf and restart X. Hopefully the
error is now gone.
If that did not work, you should be able to just delete the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf, and then (after restarting X) you should be back to the configuration you had before.
Somehow ubuntu either uses larger defaults for the virtual screen size, or adjusts them automatically while the xserver is running, but I do not know enough to comment on what is a reasonable default behaviour in general.
Good Luck. / johan