How do you change the screen resolution in X-Windows?

[Skunk]

I'm currently stuck at 800x600 and I want to knock it up to 1024x768. Problem is I don't have the slightest idea how to go about it. A search of the SuSE documentation brought up a very unclear bit of text about the XF68Config file - I found the file and found the section the halp file referred to (the Screen title bit I think) but I wasn't sure how to progress from there. There were 3 things defined - VGA, SVGA and something else. The question is, which of these do I edit and (more to the point) what should I do once I've edited it? Do I restart the whole linux machine or is there a command that will just restart X Windows?

Cheers,

SKunk

[Ironheart]

*Rushes before aef gets here* :)

Well with Mandrake, to change the resolution I can assume you could edit the XF86Config manually (or the version 4 file, I think called XF86Config-4 or something similar, but I use 3.3.6) or the easier way is to use the GUI control menu. I click Mandrake Control Centre, enter the root password at the prompt, then pick Display from the left-hand menu. I click the button with my card name on, it prompts me to enter my Installation CD #1, then pops up a window asking me to pick my card type (in case it's changed I suppose). I do that, then it pops up another window that you can pick the resolution and colour depth from, click OK and Robert's your father's brother.

To restart X, you can either use Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to kill the X client and take you to the console, or an easier way (in Mandrake anyway) is to just log out, which takes you to the X prompt, then there is a button on the login screen that says 'Restart X'. Click that, X restarts and uses your new settings.

I can't think Suse is that much different, but I'm sure someone can give you Suse-specific advice here shortly.

[aef]

Originally posted by Ironheart
*Rushes before aef gets here* :)


Beat me to it :)

Actually, the easiest way here might well be to edit the config file (/etc/X11/XF86Config or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4), as in this case it isn't hard.

Find the part of the file that looks like:

Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "800x600"
EndSubsection

You should have one of those entries for each colour-depth your system supports. The "Modes" line is the one you're interested in. Here you specify each screen mode that you want to use. (Each screen mode needs a valid modeline entry earlier in the file, but you should be able to use any standard resolution that your monitor supports without having to worry about that.)

As Ironheart said, you then need to restart your X server.

The first mode is the default one that X will start in. You can then cycle between modes with CTRL+ALT+PLUS and CTRL+ALT+MINUS. The desktop will be the size of the highest resolution, you scroll around it when at a lower resolution.

AEF