[solved] dpatch for envy and screen res 1440x900

[jeremiah2329]

I have two small problems with my LinuxMint 4.0 install.

1. I can't get a screen resolution of 1440x900 which is the optimal resolution for my Viewsonic 19" widescreen monitor. (1280x1024 is the highest if offers. Restricted drivers for nvidia are turned on and glx does appear to be turned on)

2. I tried to run Envy and it says that dpatch must be installed. How do I do that?

Please type slow - I am a newbie!

-Ron

[Acid_1]

i was about to say

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sudo aptitude dpatch install

but that doesn't work, but if you want a laugh, type that in and read right near the bottom!

[jeremiah2329]

...if you want a laugh, type that in and read right near the bottom!

That is funny!

[jeremiah2329]

i was about to say

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sudo aptitude dpatch install

but that doesn't work ...

When I searched for dpatch, I got the following:

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sudo aptitude search dpatch
p   dpatch                          - patch maintenance system for Debian source

but I'm not sure what to do with that info!

[MagnusB]

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sudo aptitude -v moo

and keep adding v's. Alternately:

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sudo apt-get moo

[jeremiah2329]

Hmmm, lots of cow humor in apt.

Not to milk this one too much, but does anyone have any thoughts on how to get my screen resolution to 1440x900?

-Ron

[MagnusB]

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sudo aptitude install dpatch

And run envy again.

[jeremiah2329]

So the funniest thing happened in trying to get my screen resolution fixed. I tried to start Envy. I once again got the message saying that it had some missing dependencies and would I like to try and install them. I said yes, this time I got a message about something being locked (didn't do a good job of writing down the error messages). I tried to quit, it wouldn't, I chose "force quit" and then, like magic it started downloading and installing things. It installed Envy and then I was able to install the Envy NVidia drivers and after a restart - I was able to set screen res to 1440x900.

Not sure why all of this happened - but I'm happy!

[jeremiah2329]

Is it possible to get Envy to automatically set the screen resolution to 1440x900?

As I posted earlier, I was finally able to get Envy running properly, but I currently have to open Envy and manually set the screen resolution to 1440x900 upon start up. I have checked all the appropriate boxes to save it to the xfile, etc. but it still starts up in 1024x768 - with everything all stretched out.

This is one of the few annoyances that I have left on my desktop system at this time.

[Fred]

jeremiah2329,

Try the below link my friend.

viewtopic.php?f=90&t=11333

Fred

[jeremiah2329]

Open a file called /etc/X11/xorg.conf for editing.

In that file you will see a list of resolutions that are availiable to you. Move all the resolutions you don't want into a commented line like this:

# 1024x768 640x480 1920x1440 .... etc.

This should leave only the resolution you want in the original line. Save and exit.

Restart x or reboot if that is easier for you. Your desired resolution should now be there.

Fred:
Thanks again for your help! I can't wait to try that when I get home.

As I read the other post I was amazed at what a simple concept it is to edit the file! Heavens! What a concept! But, coming from the Windows world such a thing would be the last possibility!

-Ron

[Fred]

jeremiah2329,

Almost everything in Linux is controlled by a configuration file somewhere. The major exceptions to that rule are proprietary binary blobs that increasingly find their way into Linux. Examples are proprietary graphics drivers, some sound card drivers, some printer drivers, and wireless drivers. Proprietary drivers are notoriously buggy and poorly supported compared to open source drivers.

After you live with open source drivers for a while and see the differences you can easily see why long time Linux users have such a bad attitude toward proprietary driver makers. We are at their mercy. If they won't fix problems we are just stuck with them. With open source drivers you can usually go in and fix it yourself if it is a simple config problem, because config files are all human readable. If it is a problem in the source code you can fix that too, or easily find someone that can, recompile and you are in business again.

With proprietary stuff, you pay good money for buggy software, learn to live with it, kinda, and beg the vendor to fix it. If enough people want it fixed they will generate an upgrade and charge you again for fixing their bugs. What a deal!

Fred

[jeremiah2329]

Hi Fred and others,

Hope you're around today. I can't believe that it took this long for me to get around to working on my desktop (been mainly working off my laptop with dual boot). Anyway, tried to make the suggested change to the xorg file and found a couple of issues.

When I went into the nvidia settings to change the resolution after rebooting, there is an option to "save to x configuration file". When I select that it allows you to preview the file and the screen section looks like this:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "metamodes" "1440x900 +0+0; 1024x768 +0+0; 832x624 +0+0; 800x600 +0+0; 640x480 +0+0; 1280x1024 +0+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

The path to the file is correct: /etc/X11/xorg.conf

After that I opened the file with the text editor and this was what I found in the screen section:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "nVidia Corporation NV11DDR [GeForce2 MX200]"
Monitor "VL1919"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "AddARGBVisuals" "True"
Option "NoLogo" "True"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

As you can see they are quite different and the desired resolution of 1440x900 is not in the saved version. Any thoughts on what may be happening.

Also, I tried simply adding 1440x900 to the modes line and commenting the rest. When I did so I received this error:

You do not have the permissions necessary to save the file.
Please check that you typed the location correctly and try again.

But there is not option for adding a sudo to the save in the text editor that I could find. So how do I open it with sudo or with get permissions needed?

Thanks again for your help!

[Husse]

Well please don't use the option to save to xorg.conf in "Xserver Display Configuration" in nvidia settings
Unless it has changed recently it does not play well with your xorg.conf - it may actually destroy settings for other things than video (specially configured mice would be an example)
When you've found out what to do edit xorg.conf manually

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gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

or for KDE

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kdesu kate /etc/X11/xorg.conf

But it's very simple to do it if you want

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sudo nvidia-settings

[jeremiah2329]

Profound Thanks to all who helped me on this issue. I was able to make the edits using the commands that Husse posted.

Modified the display subsection of xorg.conf to look like this:

SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1440x900"
# "1280x1024" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
EndSubSection

When I restarted it sat for a long time before the progress bar started moving (I was worried!) and then it started up and the resolution was perfectly set!

Success has a sweet smell!