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About a week ago, I upgraded my Dell Optiplex GX520 from 10.04 Lucid Lynx to 10.10. Unfortunately, I excitedly ignored all the warnings about how it was a beta release and I'm now stuck with a big problem: the screen resolution is way too small.

Right now, when going to System->Preferences->Monitors, I see 1024x768 listed as the current display setting, with the only higher setting being 1360x768 (which is useless as it just squeezes the screen). Before the upgrade, everything looked fine- I was able to view certain websites without a horizontal scroll bar, but after the upgrade, the entire interface looks oversized and I can't seem to find a way to change it.

Is there some way I can downgrade the OS, or even my version of whatever package manages screen resolutions, so I can "reset" it to how it was working before the upgrade? Or is there any other fix that I can do?

EDIT

Running xrandr returns the following:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 768, maximum 4096 x 4096 VGA1 connected 1024x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm 1360x768 59.8
1024x768 60.0* 800x600 60.3 56.2
848x480 60.0
640x480 59.9 59.9

This is basically what I saw in System->Preferences->Monitors... except that it looks like with a maximum of res of 4096x4096, I should be able to make it higher.

Thanks for any help in advance.

element119
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  • This page should be somewhat helpful. You probably have Intel 950 onboard video, if you have not added a video card. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution – charlie-tca Nov 10 '10 at 02:21
  • Thanks for the link- I've update my question to reflect what happened when I tried that. – element119 Nov 10 '10 at 02:27

4 Answers4

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sounds like driver issue or a failure to detect monitor type. Are you using ATI or nVidia GPU cards? If so have you tried to use the "System" -> "Administration" -> "Additional Driver" to find proprietary drivers?

hansioux
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  • Additional Drivers returns "No proprietary drivers are in use on this system."... – element119 Nov 10 '10 at 02:20
  • When I typed lspci, it returned "Intel Corporation 82945G", so I'm not sure which card this means I have... sorry if I'm not clear about this, I'm not very good with hardware. – element119 Nov 10 '10 at 02:22
  • have you enabled the X org update PPA in Ubuntu Tweak or added the below PPA on your own?

    deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates/ubuntu maverick main #X Updates

     – hansioux Nov 10 '10 at 05:48
  • Is deb a command that I need to run? How would I add those files? – element119 Nov 10 '10 at 11:00
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Updated:

Run

 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates

Then update via update-manager

Extender
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  • When I added "nomodeset" after "quiet splash" and then pressed CRTL-X, the computer booted up with what looks like command-line mode... I logged into that and typed "startx" to see if I could show the user interface, but it gave me something along the lines of "no monitor detected". – element119 Nov 10 '10 at 11:00
  • When I ran the command you listed, it returned this: Executing: gpg --ignore-time-conflict --no-options --no-default-keyring --secret-keyring /etc/apt/secring.gpg --trustdb-name /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --primary-keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv 643DC6BD56580CEB1AB4A9F63B22AB97AF1CDFA9 gpg: requesting key AF1CDFA9 from hkp server keyserver.ubuntu.com gpg: key AF1CDFA9: "Launchpad PPA for Ubuntu-X" not changed gpg: Total number processed: 1 gpg: unchanged: 1 – element119 Nov 10 '10 at 21:57
  • I then updated & installed the packages, restarted, but to no avail. – element119 Nov 10 '10 at 21:58
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I solved this by just giving up on 10.10... I backed up my comp and reinstalled 10.04.

Hopefully Canonical will fix this problem soon.

element119
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Source: My Blog: http://praveenlearner.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/how-to-change-screen-resolution-after-ubuntu-10-10-installation/

Step-by-step to Change Screen Resolution in Ubuntun 10.10:

1.praveen@praveen-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install v86d

  1. praveen@praveen-desktop:~$ sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash”

simply search the above string and replace with the following string

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash nomodeset video=uvesafb:mode_option=1024×768-24, mtrr=3, scroll=ywrap”

1024*768 is my resolution. If you wish change this into 1366*768 of any other

  1. praveen@praveen-desktop:~$ sudo gedit /etc/intramfs-tools/modules then Add the following string at the bottom of the page

    uvesafb mode_option=1366×768-24 mtrr=3 scroll=ywrap”

  2. praveen@praveen-desktop:~$ sudo update-grub

or

praveen@praveen-desktop:~$ sudo update-grub2
  1. praveen@praveen-desktop:~$ sudo update-initramfs -u
  2. Restart your computer

Your monitor resolution is now set as 1024*768

Praveen Srinivasan
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