ubuntu, x11, nvidia

[Trent Shipley]

On Wednesday 2008-07-30, Matt Graham wrote:
> From: Trent Shipley <tshipley at deru.com>
>
> > Ubuntu won't autodetect my new Westinghouse L1916HW monitor.
>
> CRT, LCD, TV, what is it?  And what do you mean "won't autodetect"?
> Monitors are simple.  Did you mean "is detected incorrectly, so I
> get about 640x480 out of it"?
>
> > Is there an Ubuntu tool to configure X11?
> > If not, how do I do configure X11 with a text editor?
>
> Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf , assuming that Ubuntu doesn't do the
> wrong thing and rewrite that file with auto-detected info on boot.
> (SuSE did this for a while.)  Find the "Monitor" section.  In this
> section, enter 2 lines:
>
> HorizSync  N - M
> VertRefresh X - Y
>
> ...if your monitor is a CRT, these values are in The Fine Manual
> that came with your monitor.  If it's an LCD, Hsync should be about
> 38-90 while Vsync should be about 55-160.  LCDs don't *have* hsync
> and vsync, but X pretends they do.
>
> Then find the Display subsection.  Make sure that the Modes line
> contains appropriate Modes for your monitor.  Like so:
>    Depth   24
>    Modes   "1280x1024"
> ...since this LCD's native size is 1280x1024.
>
> If this is a TV, things get more complex.  TVs are weird.

Ubuntu set up the monitor-card configuration incorrectly.  It turns out an 
earlier kernel could not handle the Nvidia proprietary driver so it set 
handled the card as least common denominator.  This meant that the resolution 
was set to 640x480.  I mistakenly thought it was a monitor problem since 
Ubuntu wouldn't let me set the monitor's resolution to anything else.

Upgrading the kernel took care of the problem, but not before I bought a new 
monitor.  At least the new monitor is pretty.