[ale] dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

[Chris Fowler]

On Wed, 2008-05-07 at 16:52 -0400, ale-request at ale.org wrote:
> This is interesting to read because I just put Ubuntu 8.04 on a quite 
> new mobo with built-in Radeon and wound up with a blank screen.  It 
> improved things to let the livecd boot all the way and then hit the 
> "install" icon on the desktop - I got a useless scrambled screen - but
> it all sorted out when I renamed xorg.conf to get it out of the way
> and, ta-da, working X. 
> 
> Now my issue is that I am supposed to add a section to an xorg.conf
> that I don't even have in order to support a Wacon pen tablet. 
> 
> While the livecd was up, I copied off the apparently working xorg.conf
> so that I could re-use it, but I'm concerned that it doesn't know 
> anything about the proprietary Radeon driver that Synaptic prompted me
> to let it install.

The problem I had was that "all-knowing X" only could see a resolution
of 1024x768.  I had to manually edit the xorg.conf and add 1680x1050.

I added the following lines to the Screen section

SubSection Display
 Viewport 0 0
 Modes "1680x1050"
EndSubSection

It also was not using the nv driver.  I had to MANUALLY add the line
"driver 'nv'" as well.

My point being that they removed a feature assuming that X was going to
do the right thing and in 2 cases I've experienced it did NOT detect my
monitor correctly.

In 7.10 I ran the dpkg-reconfigure command and go things working just
fine.  I used that to select the only resolutions I wanted to support
and for it to detect what monitor I had installed.

I had a sub-optimal desktop until I executed vim.  That is not
progress.