X11

I never minded xorg.com (and whatever it was called before that, when we were still using XFree86) that much. I liked that once I got it set up, it always worked properly, and I could define the exact behavior I wanted using a text file, instead of wrestle some GUI config tool into doing what I wanted.

The biggest problem with this file was the Modelines, and that was really a relic of the analog VGA connector and the CRTs used at the time. It got a lot better when we switched to DVI and HDMI digital connectors. They never should have had an analog connector in the first place; the image was digitally created by the video card after all, and in LCDs had to be converted right back to digital to display it, causing quality loss. Even the older video standards, EGA and CGA, used digital connectors, but I guess when VGA came around they couldn't get a fast enough data rate on the cable to support that.

Yes. Fiddling with the xfree86 config file was my first foray into making the computer do things how _I_ wanted.

What I did might even have been called an experiment. But the important thing was that I was not just blindly following some recipe. No one explained "howto". I saw the text file, thought I understood something as a result, and (after backing-up the original ;-) ) made the change.

It was a very (very) trivial thing, really, just rearranging the available resolutions to cycle in the order that made me happy (and getting rid of one or two that I saw no point in having) but the consequent change in my _attitude_ towards using computers was profound.

Fortunately, in 2000, messing about with modelines was already a disappearing dark art, which I was never subjected to -- though there were still warnings to be heeded about over-driving your monitor.

You're bringing back hated memories of the early days. I always thought to myself, "how come qtparted can have a graphical interface with NO configuring or asking me what the horizontal refresh is, but Debian won't work even after I've given it 100 answers?"

I never understood why some distros detected and properly set my resolution, while others couldn't even get me a 640x480 GUI. (And I'm not talking about a text only distro.)

Still have to use a custom modlines in my xorg.conf for my TV to correct for overscan, but it is still a dying art made all that trickier since xvidtune doesn't work with Nouveau or the Nvidia drivers :(

I really hate the move away from a xorg.conf (or what it had been called back in the XFree-86 days... D@mn! I so long I can't remember). It's so anti-Linux not to have a text editable configuration file.

Which version are you using? I still have xorg.conf and I can see in /var/log/Xorg.0.log that the server reads it on startup.

By default, the version(s) of Xorg that ships with Ubuntu, since Karmic, do not give you an Xorg.conf file. You have to force it to do that.

Force it to do what?

Similarly, what's to stop you from simply creating your own?

Talking about messaging about with configurations to change your resolution is rather moot these days.

Since most of us now and more in the future will be using LCDs with a "fixed" resolution, why would anyone want to use less than that?

Quoting: Force it to do what?

Generate an Xorg.conf file,... Othewise, it uses auto-detection...

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1336863