Amazing linux stunts with 1920x1200 LCD monitor

[Walter Dnes]

  First of all, the bad news.  The monitor does *NOT* like "vga=6" in
/etc/lilo.conf (and probably not in GRUB either).

  Yes, the LCD monitor does work "automagically".  I hooked up via the
DVI connector and put it through its paces.  At first, it's scarey just
setting resolutions in xorg.conf without modelines, but I did just that,
setting a resolution of 1920x1200.  The text on Firefox is so crisp,
it's like wow.  And I can put 2 Firefox windows side-by-each.

<MODE="KTel commercial> But wait, there's more </MODE>
We all know that most lower resolutions suck on LCD monitors, because
they're trying to interpolate partial pixels on top of a fixed physical
resolution.  However, if you can divide vertical and horizontal
resolutions exactly by whole numbers, there's no interpolation, although
the image may start being blocky.  Dividing 1920 by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6
yields 960, 640, 480, 384, and 320.  Similarly, dividing 1200 by 2, 3,
4, 5, and 6 yields 600, 400, 300, 240, and 200.  So the following
resolutions...

960x600 and 640x400 and 480x300 and 384x240 and 320x200

...are interpolation-free.  The lower resolutions are great for playing
videos from Youtube etal.


<MODE="KTel commercial> But wait, there's even more </MODE>
You don't necessarily have to combine 1920/3 with 1200/3 or 1920/4 with
1200/4.  Any valid X resolution with any valid Y resolution is OK.  Most
possible combinations look ridiculous, but 640x600, 480x400, 384x300,
and 320x240 are usable, indeed just right, for some videos.

  OK, so I have the following video modes...
1920x1200, 960x600, 640x600, 640x400, 480x400, 480x300, 384x300,
384x240, 320x240, and 320x200.  Now, how do I invoke X with the desired
resolutions?  I start off with /etc/X11/xorg.conf, with only 1920x1200
selected.  Then I make a bunch of copies like so...

m3000 X11 # ll -og *.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 15165 Sep 13 20:43 320x200xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 15165 Sep 13 20:51 320x240xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 15165 Sep 13 19:51 384x240xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 15165 Sep 13 20:31 384x300xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 15165 Sep 13 19:50 480x300xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 15165 Sep 13 20:28 480x400xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 15165 Sep 13 19:49 640x400xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 15165 Sep 13 20:22 640x600xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 15165 Sep 13 19:48 960x600xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 15171 Sep 13 21:31 xorg.conf

  Next, set the resolution in each copy to match the numbers in the
filename (or else, you'll end up being very confused).

  Next, create the file ~/bin/x, with the following lines...

#! /bin/bash
startx -- -nolisten tcp -config ${1}xorg.conf &

  If you invoke it as "x", with no parameters, it'll load using
xorg.conf.  If you invoke it as "x abcxdef", it will try to start X
using abcxdefxorg.conf.  Give it the appropriate prefix, and it'll start
X with the corresponding conf file, e.g. "x 384x300" uses
384x300xorg.conf.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org> In linux /sbin/init is Job #1
Q. Mr. Ghandi, what do you think of Microsoft security?
A. I think it would be a good idea.
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