Unable to use max resolution in Ubuntu?

[duragezic]

I was getting fed up with FC3 so I decided to install Ubuntu again last night, and all has been well thus far except that for some reason, the max resolution in the Screen Resolution settings is only 1280x1024. Even at that res, everything in Ubuntu is big and simple, and it feels more like 800x600. I run 1600x1200 in all other OSes, why can't I in this? I couldn't find where it detected my monitor, but it did detect my video card correctly as a 9800. Any ideas?

I had a couple of other quick questions but I forgot them, so I'll edit this post when I think of 'em!

 

[drag]

monitor size and all that is determined by your X.org, or XFree86 configuration file. (depending on weither or not your using hoary or warty.)


For your monitor setup check out this section:
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
HorizSync 30-92
VertRefresh 50-85
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Or whatever monitor is named.

Make sure that the HorizSync and VertRefresh is correct for your monitor. DPMS means that the OS tries to autodetect the H/V syncs if there is none specified. A extension to the VESA standard that most modern monitors support is the ability to tell the computer directly via the VGA cord what it's refresh rates are and such.

Then next thing is this:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
Device "NVIDIA Corporation NV35 [Geforce FX 5900]"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
:EndSection



Make sure that it is using the correct color depth (DefaultDepth) and that the Modes are correct for what you want to use. Just add whatever you want, if the monitor will support it it will display at those sizes, hopefully.


This section tells what things to use for the default layout. You can have multiple layouts... Maybe you want one setup that has one monitor, but you want to have a different layout that you want to support dual monitors and such. But that's getting compex. Just make sure that all the names match up when your finished..

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection


If you need help finding options or remembering the name of options check out the
man XFree86-4
file.

You can search thru man files from current position down by hitting the / button. (generic 'search' key for many command line apps and some gui apps, such as firefox)

The location and name of the configuration file is:
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4

you also sometimes have it without the -4 in it's name. If you have 2 config files one without the -4 and the other without, it will choose the one with the -4. If in doubt check out the log files at /var/log/ and it will show you exactly what file it is using.

Also in that log file lines beginning with WW are warnings.. these are small errors that may or may not mean much. Lines with EE in front of them mean that it's a serious enough error that it'll stop X from working.

 

[duragezic]

As usual, thanks a lot drag!

edit: For some reason, there is a big delay when trying to connect to sites. For instance, if I wanted to goto a bookmark, it would load and sit at Resolving host www.sdfdfsdf.com.... Then after like 20 seconds it will connect and load as normally. Same things happens when I try to connect to GAIM. It will sit at the connecting screen for 15-20 seconds, then load normally. Every webpage I go to tends to do this! The internet is fast otherwise such as when downloading files or loading pages.

 

[Zelmo3]

The delay in resolving host likely comes from the system trying to use IPv6 for its domain resolution. If you're using FireFox you can keep it from using IPv6 by typing "about:config" into the address bar, find network.dns.disableIPv6 (start typing the name into the filter bar to find it quickly), and change its value to "true" by double-clicking on it.

There's also a system-wide setting that involves uncommenting a line in /etc/somethingorother/aliases (not sure now because I'm not logged into Debian at the moment) that turns off IPv6. You'll know if you find the file because the top says something about uncommenting any lines for stuff you don't want loaded.

 

[duragezic]

Right that seems to be a common problem. So I disabled IPv6 in Firefox and uncommented the line in /etc/modules.conf and restarted Ubuntu, but still I get the delay on Resolving host.

edit: Another couple of problems I have are:

1) I'm trying to install Licq. I downloaded the .deb of licq and the .deb of the licq-plugin-qt since it needed that to install the licq package. But I can't install one or the other without having one of them on there. I tried dpkg -x on the qt plugin but that just extracted stuff in the directory and dpkg -i still fails on the main package.

2) I downloaded Gdesklets with Synaptic but while trying to run it gives me the message: /usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/__init__.py:90: GtkDeprecationWarning: gtk.mainloop is deprecated, use gtk.main instead
self.warn(message, DeprecationWarning)

And it just hangs there.

 

[BlueWeasel]

I just installed Ubuntu on my laptop over the weekend, and I've noticed the same problem regarding the "Resolving Hosts" issue.

 

[drag]

licq should be aviable by default for Ubuntu thru "universe", no?

do a:
apt-cache search licq

should turn something up.

Probably just go:
apt-get install licq

If you end up with circular dependancies (were one package requires another package to install and the other package requires the first package to install so neither will install), it's a package bug and should be fixed by the maintainer. Don't forget that you need to update your listings of packages and such time to time. (there are forums for ubuntu and probably bugtraq and IRC lines and such if you want.)

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

If you want a more powerfull front end to apt-get check out aptitude. Once you get use to the buttons it's quite nice. Search thru stuff with the / button, to do another search with the same term use the \ button.

For the dns resolve issue, I don't know.

The dns name servers are stored in a file called /etc/resolv.conf
You can add more nameservers if you want... maybe try the DNS servers from your ISP and list those before the DNS server for your home lan or router or whatnot. This stuff is configured thru dhcp a lot, but I prefer to have the DNS servers in their anyway. The syntax for a dns server line is

nameserver dns.server's.ip.address

Maybe that will make things a bit quicker.