Intel Graphics, Mint 14 (MATE), 32" LCD TV Monitor. [SOLVED]

[bob]

Okay guys, I'm personally running Fedora 17 with an Nvidia card and resolutions issues are a no-brainer here, however I've installed Mint 14 (Mate) on my friend's older Dell machine, onboard Intel graphics and his max resolution is 1024x768 which results in squashed heads/bodies when watching HULU and some problems with seeing online banking figures. It seems that the proper resolution for him would be 1366x768 and his TV specs show 60hz as a good refresh rate.

Now, I haven't played in /etc/X11/xorg.conf for several years and I haven't used VI in about that same amount of time and ...it is my friend's machine, so I don't want to end up with a black screen when I'm done 'helping' him. In short, can someone give me an assist by confirming that we're still modifying /etc/X11/xorg.conf and what should be added under MONITOR to increase the resolution? VI is a last-resort option, but is there a built-in text editor similar to gedit that comes with Mate?

[bigj231]

I believe you can set resolutions with xrandr instead of the xorg.conf. Also, Mint has gedit included. You could also use nano for quick edits. I find it easier to use than VI.
Also, how much older is it? P3 era? 1024x768 could be the max resolution for that chipset.

[bob]

Thanks for the quick response.

It's a P4, maybe 4 years old? Here's the last time I had this issue with his machine/TV: viewtopic.php?f=49&t=39383 and at least we're now at 1024x768 instead of 800x600, which is somewhat of an improvement! Tried to fire up gedit and it's apparently not included in the default install on Mate, but yeah, that's a heckuva lot easier than VI, so I'll install it.

Time moves on, many things change, so that's the reason for my question on what's the current method of adding additional resolutions.

[bigj231]

nano is inculded by default. It's still much easier than VI.

[bob]

Partial success! (partial 'yeehaw'): I've used xrandr to create the following:

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xrandr --newmode 1366x768 85.25 1368 1440 1576 1784  768 771 781 798 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode VGA1 1366x768
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1366x768

which does change the resolution to correct values and all looks normal for that one login. So, time to make a start-up script, right?

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#!/bin/sh
xrandr --output VGA1 --primary --mode 1366x768

Which I've chmod'd and added to the start-up scripts and....nope, doesn't work because once I've rebooted, the xrandr values have reverted. So, what's the final step that I should be following here? Second script? Modify this one, adding the top two xrandr lines? Appreciate the help.

[bigj231]

Try this:

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#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/xrandr --output VGA1 --primary --mode 1366x768

I used the 'which' command to find the path to the executable. I've had issues with just using simple commands in my shell scripts.
Are the different resolutions still shown? If they aren't then you could just turn your code into a shell script.

[bob]

Okay, a new day and JOY!!!

Turns out that just modifying the .sh script to this:

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#!/bin/sh
xrandr --newmode 1366x768 85.25 1368 1440 1576 1784  768 771 781 798 -hsync +vsync
xrandr --addmode VGA1 1366x768
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1366x768

boots the correct resolution. The path was already set in the control panel when the script was added, so it was the missing top two lines that was the problem.

Thanks to all...back to Fedora... Nah, gotta dual-boot myself now with F-18 and Mint. Great distro.

[bigj231]

It really is. And you don't have to deal with RPM either.
Glad you got it working.