LOCK IN a video resolution setting?

paulkruger · #1 1st August 2009, 09:12 PM

How can I lock in a screen resolution setting so Fedora has no other options to use?

I had this problem and thought it went away as F11 has been behaving fine for weeks. Today it froze so I had to power cycle to reboot. It came back but had a crappy resolution setting and no higher options available.

I had to re-boot twice to get it to finally load the correct settings again.

How can I fix this so it cannot boot to lower resolution?

I want to LOCK IN the minimum resolution so it cannot boot to that crappy screen whenever it has a mind to. I feel I should be the one to decide what to load...it's my computer !!

sonoran · #2 4th August 2009, 06:42 AM

None of the official methods (gnome settings guis, xorg.conf file) have worked reliably for me since Fedora 9, so what I do is add vga=795 to the end of the kernel line in /boot/grub/grub.conf.

I've been told that number is "wrong", that that is not the right place, and several other things, but the practical result is that my old Matrox card and old crt come up in 1600x1200.

To find your magic number, try vga=ask and you will get some options to try. I think I eventually found mine in Wikipedia under something like "vesa modes."

Hope this helps.

paulkruger · #3 4th August 2009, 03:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonoran

None of the official methods (gnome settings guis, xorg.conf file) have worked reliably for me since Fedora 9, so what I do is add vga=795 to the end of the kernel line in /boot/grub/grub.conf.

I've been told that number is "wrong", that that is not the right place, and several other things, but the practical result is that my old Matrox card and old crt come up in 1600x1200.

To find your magic number, try vga=ask and you will get some options to try. I think I eventually found mine in Wikipedia under something like "vesa modes."

Hope this helps.

One would think that if an older way of doing something worked and the newer "improvement" did not, that they would return to the method that works. This sounds like a case where someone should have applied the old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

paulkruger · #4 4th August 2009, 06:32 PM

For a long time ( week or two ) it booted to a good resolution setting. If it failed a re-boot typically restored the correct resolution. Recently numerous re-boots result in crappy resolution.

After a couple tries today the mouse stops working and the sytem is frozen such that I have to power off with the power button to reboot.

paulkruger · #5 4th August 2009, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulkruger

One would think that if an older way of doing something worked and the newer "improvement" did not, that they would return to the method that works. This sounds like a case where someone should have applied the old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

That seemed to work. I just made up a number and now it seems to boot to a decent resolution again

Strange is that the original progress bar on load is gone, replaced by a Fedora logo that gradually "fills" in the middle of the screen.

sonoran · #6 10th August 2009, 09:15 AM

I get rid of the graphical boot after installation by deleting "rhgb quiet" from the kernel line. I am not impressed by the graphics to begin with and I would prefer to see the boot messages.

Here's another oddity on my machine: if I boot with anything connected to a front usb port, the boot results in a black screen just the same as I always get immediately after a new installation, before I have made any adjustments.

Something the init process does to configure what is connected to the usb port messes up my video settings.

I notice you are also running a 64-bit system - these problems may be the result of that. Might turn out to be something really exotic like a gcc compiler bug, something that works in 32 bit does not when compiled for 64 bit.

Have you tried a minimal xorg.conf file with just your preferred video resolution in it? My solution works reliably here, as long as I remember to take out memory sticks and usb drives when booting. If the problem recurred I think I would try the config file route.

paulkruger · #7 10th August 2009, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonoran

I notice you are also running a 64-bit system - these problems may be the result of that. Might turn out to be something really exotic like a gcc compiler bug, something that works in 32 bit does not when compiled for 64 bit.

No running 32 bit on F11. I have more than one machine, one of which is 64 bit but that is not the machine with the resolution issue.