[Novalug] incredibly stupid monitor

[Beartooth]

On Wed, 14 May 2008, Megan Larko wrote:

>>     When I did realize that, I tried to reset it -- with the 
>> GUI for Display that both Fedora and CentOS have. Bad move. It 
>> apparently changed it in one place but not another. Result: 
>> the monitor tells me to change the resolution, then puts 
>> itself to sleep as soon as I try to log in (GUI-ly, of 
>> course). (Is there a way to log into text mode from the 
>> standard login prompt, rather than boot to it??
>
> If you wish to get out of a bad X-window mode you may use the 
> key sequence CTL-ALT-Backspace hitting all three 
> similtaneously. Another method is to go to another console by 
> hitting ALT-F{number) where number is one of the F1 through F12 
> function keys.  The ATL-F7 goes to the X-window mode.  Some of 
> the higher ALT-F10 through Alt-F12 keys are mapped to other 
> functions in some distributions.  Usually using ALT-F1 through 
> Alt-F9 is a reliable way to get a non-GUI console.  One may 
> also kill the X-session by changing the "init" level of the 
> system (found in /etc/inittab in most linux distros).  To 
> change it for a temporary use, as root issue the command "init 
> 3" which will put you into full user non-XWindow mode.  (init 
> level 1 is single user, init 6 is shutdown)

 	Great; many thanks! I'll try one of those next time.

 	The result of changing xorg.conf, the way I did it, was 
only slight improvement -- it let me log in and su to root, and 
then put itself to sleep, still before I could do anything.

> For Ubuntu, clicking the lower left panel icon and selecting 
> "System Settings"  --> "Monitor and Display" will permit 
> setting the screen resolution.  On my Ubuntu 7.04 box the 
> setting is often incorrect on initial power-on/boot-up 
> (1024x780 or something like that) but *after* I login as my own 
> userid then the monitor resets itself to the correct resolution 
> (1600x1400 ??? or such similar) and will remain correct until 
> the power cycles on the computer again.

> Regarding your Ubuntu version, issue the command "cat 
> /etc/lsb-release"  and you will be shown what you are currently 
> running.

 	I'm in Ubuntu (7.10) now; I changed CentOS back, and am 
trying to see if Ubuntu really will upgrade itself. It wouldn't 
without one or another desktop, which I had uninstalled; I put 
one back -- and it failed for want of space. (This is in a 6.38 
GB partition on a testbed, remember.) I uninstalled some stuff 
that I would anyway after the upgrade, and it's trying again now.

 	My inclination now, with this machine, is to just leave 
all three distros set to 1280x1024, and let the monitor stretch 
them; it does, all three.

 	But there's one cloud no bigger than a man's hand on my 
horizon. Just as I was getting ready to reboot from Fedora to 
CentOS, my display suddenly lost the whole left panel, and a 
little off the left end of the bottom panel -- where I keep my 
shutdown launcher, among other things ...

 	If that happens much, once all machines are back behind 
the KVM switch, there could be trouble.

-- 
Beartooth Gerontoflatulocrat,
Cantankerous Codger
I have hunted, and I have lived.