"Unknown Monitor" and cant increase resolution beyoud 800x600

[Lorin Ricker]

By coincidence!... This very problem happened to my daughter's PC yesterday afternoon when she did the upgrade from 9.04/JJ to 9.10/KK -- Doesn't appear that she "did anything wrong" during the upgrade; Karmic just failed to recognize her monitor, even though Jaunty (and Hardy before that) handled it just fine. Who broke that code?

Anyway, the above recipe fixed things up fine. Many thanks to the community for recognizing the problem quickly and providing a very clear and usable fix! Thank you, Sharaq!

-- Lorin

[Lorin Ricker]

Hmm, mmarton. We rebooted my daughter's PC immediately after editing the /etc/gdm/Init/Default file, and the fix is persistent for us. I just rebooted it again after reading your problem, and the fix indeed stays in place after a second reboot. There's nothing that I know of that would somehow "sneakily revert" your edits to the file... More likely, they're not being saved correctly in the first place.

However, you say that you're using "sudo gedit <file>" rather than "gksudo gedit <file>". Various Ubuntu "tips and tricks" books that I've read have emphasized using gksudo for any application which is a graphical user interface (like gedit), rather than just sudo (which is for com-line commands only).

Do a "$ sudo cat /etc/gdm/Init/Default" both before and after you edit the file (using gksudo) to confirm the contents/state at each point. Once you edit the file correctly, the fix (lines) should persist!

-- Lorin

[Lorin Ricker]

Note that when you use the unadorned "$ xrandr" command to show/report your monitor's current configuration, it might actually say something other than "VGA1" (although that's probably what most folks see). Don't just blindly use "VGA1" in your subsequent xrandr commands... use whatever display name your original command gives you! -- L

[CodeRage]

Note that when you use the unadorned "$ xrandr" command to show/report your monitor's current configuration, it might actually say something other than "VGA1" (although that's probably what most folks see). Don't just blindly use "VGA1" in your subsequent xrandr commands... use whatever display name your original command gives you! -- L

A good example of it not being "VGA1" or such in my case, it showed up as

default connected 1024x768+0+0 0mm x 0mm

so I used

default

in place of "VGA1".

I hope this helps others with the elusive VGA1.

FYI: My machine is a Dell Inspiron 1501.


Thanks and you're welcome.

CR

[Darkseren]

Yay Thank you so much! this is an awesome fix for an annoying problem!

[Tourdog]

Tried this method but it doesn't work. Could it be the Karmic 64 bit issue or is it the "gdm" problem? Or something else?

I have read of the "script" method but this seems more elegant.........

Any thoughts?

TIA!

[sharaq]

It can't be a 64 bit issue, I'm running in 64 bit. May be the gdm issue.
anyways the script works, right ???. Yeah ! true that's not a good fix for the problem. the screen does crazy thing on start up

Try that gdm fix.

How did you install your Nvidia drivers. Using envyng or ....another method?

[Tourdog]

Sharag,
I used "system- preferences- Hardware Drivers. I tried "Owenisred" method too but am stopped with:

W: GPG error: http://packages.medibuntu.org karmic Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO PUBKEY ..........................................

I have about 4 issues yet to solve on my 64 bit Karmic 9.10 and all seem to hinge on security code in the distro.

I have seen and have been stopped by that GPG error many times before! Huge frustration. The "script" method also stops me with...... "Access Denied"! I have all the passwords too.

Anybody know of an easy way (anyway) to solve the GPG error ie NO PUBKEY?

[sharaq]

ok try installing your Nvidia drivers using envyng.
1)
open a terminal

$ sudo apt-get install envyng

then after that
2)

$ sudo envyng -t

and uninstall Nvidia drivers. then reboot the computer and then again run the command in step 2
and now install Nvidia drivers.

3)
after that go to

system >> Administration >> Nvidia X server settings

then go to x server display configuration and change to the resolution you want, and click save to X configuration then click show preview and copy the content to /etc/X11/xorg.conf (remember to back up the current xorg.conf file first)

To do that use

$ gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

delete the content and replace it with the copied one from Nvidia X server settings and save the file

[perspectoff]

The original post was about an Intel graphics card.

I had the same problems in Jaunty and Karmic. I had to rollback the Intel graphics to 2.4 (the version used in Intrepid) following the instructions found here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReinhardTart...telDriverTo2.4

I have not had recent problems with ATI or NVidia drivers (although I did with NVidia way back in Intrepid).