Panning Desktop WITHOUT xorg.conf

[johny why <johnywhy@gmail.com>]

not sure if this is relevant, but for noobs like me, this method enables a 
virtual panning desktop on Debian, from a terminal command-line, without need 
for a xorg.conf:

xrandr --output VGA1 --rate 60 --mode 800x600 --fb 1280x1024 --panning 1280x1024

the "mode" is your viewport (ie, max res of your monitor). The "fb" and 
"panning" are both set to your desired virtual size. 

This will not work if the "output" parameter is not your active graphics card. 
Find out your active graphics card by running xrandr on a command line, without 
any arguments. 

You can switch back to normal resolution with the same command, with your actual 
screen resolution used for all the arguments. 

Now you can quickly switch between panning and non-panning resolution by putting 
the two different commands into .sh files, and make them "executable" on the 
permissions tab of their file properties. 

on my asus netbook, my commands are:

normal.sh
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1024x600 --fb 1024x600 --panning 1024x600

tall.sh
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1024x600 --fb 1024x768 --panning 1024x768

from:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution#Panning_viewport