ubuntu / I-INC

[CLIFFORD ILKAY]

Mr Chris Aitken wrote:
> I just bought an I-INC 28" LCD display. I have a KVM switch between an
> XP box and an Ubuntu 8.04. The XP box is running the display at 1600 X
> 1200 at 32-bit. It looks great. My apps show as the size I had before
> but I can fit more of 'em on the screen - exactly what I want.
> 
> Linux, however, is only offering 800 X 600 and 640 X 480 at a pathetic
> 60 or 56 Hz. How can I correct this? I respectfully ask please not to
> suggest a newer version installation of linux. I moved all most of my
> work (except I have XP to run recording software since alsa still can't
> fully "get" the E-MU 1212m pci card) precisely to get away from the
> re-boot/re-install mentality of Microsoft.

The problem is Ubuntu, not Linux per se. I find X configuration in
Ubuntu is an adventure. I'm doing preseed installations onto systems
that have vanilla Intel graphics chipsets with ancient 15" CRT monitors
and more often than not, silly Ubuntu will be running at 1280x768
without having auto-detected the monitor. I now have the dance down,
mostly. I pick the right monitor in the control panel, log out, restart
X, which invariably fails so I have restart the machine, log in, and set
the resolution to 1024x768. If I'm foolish enough to pick the right
monitor and set the resolution to 1024x768 right away, the display will
go dark and I'll lose control of the keyboard (number and caps lock
don't work) and the machine will even become unresponsive to pings or
ssh log ins. I'll have to do a hard reset and then run xfix in
"recovery" mode but I must remember *not* to resume booting to the GUI
after "xfix" has done its thing. I must remember to reboot the machine.

The above will usually work, at least until the first power failure when
the machine has a dirty shutdown and the resolution will be whatever
Ubuntu seems to think it should be when it comes back up, which is not
the same thing as what I had set it to be or anything sensible. On those
occasions, the symptom will be that the display will pan because the
virtual desktop will be larger than the viewport. If I'm lucky, I'll be
able to set the resolution to what it should be without fuss but
usually, I'll have to go through the dance above. This happens with 7.10
(with Nvidia and Intel chipsets on a variety of older monitors) and 8.04
(with Intel chipsets on a variety of older monitors). For a distro that
is supposedly so user-friendly, nonsense like this is just maddening.
-- 
Regards,

Clifford Ilkay
Dinamis
1419-3266 Yonge St.
Toronto, ON
Canada  M4N 3P6

<http://dinamis.com>
+1 416-410-3326
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