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I did it again - messed with the X11 configuration and gnome was gone. Not such a big problem I thought - I backed up my /home directory and reinstalled Ubuntu.

After reinstalling Ubuntu I was going to set up the screen resolution to 1920×1200 which was the native resolution of my Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP. I need to log out? OK, done that. Back to my desktop; the screen resolution remained unchanged!

Failed brute force attack

That made me a little bit nervous since I remember having the same problem some time ago.

So I started trying all possible driver-model-widescreen-resolution variations. No result. I reinstalled Ubuntu 5 times with different configurations. Nothing. Looked up possible reasons for that on the internet, found some resources but nothing worked.

Until I noticed that there was a 2nd unused screen plugged to the graphics card.

I will show you some ways to get your native screen resolution to work on Ubuntu and what actually worked for me.

Reconfiguring X11

You (or even an application) might have messed up the xserver-xorg configuration. In this case, run it again. Do that by opening a Terminal and typing:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

If you are asked for an administrator password, enter it. The process is self-explaining. You can try both - automatic video hardware detection and manual.

After you have done this you need to log out or restart your machine in order for the changes to take effect.

Intel on-board graphics adapter

If you use an Intel on-board graphics adapter you need to install the 915resolution package before you can get your native screen resolution to work.

To do that, simply open a terminal (Applications/Accessories/Terminal) and type:

sudo apt-get install 915resolution

Enter the administrator password if you are asked for it. Restart your computer and it should work.

If it does not, Ubuntu has probably not installed the Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver. To do that, Run the Terminal again and type:

sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel

After installation is done, restart your machine.

Multiple outputs or screens

This problem is very common on notebooks which have an output for an external screen.

If you have multiple screens make sure that you set the resolution for the correct screen.

Another thing is, X11 does not like multiple screens with different resolutions a lot. If you want this fixed, plug out your second screen while your computer is turned off, and turn it on again.

Sometimes only reinstalling Ubuntu with 1 screen plugged in during the installation works. This has worked for me.

When I tried auto detection on my second screen it detected it as a “Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP” although it was not. I believe that is a bug in X11.

…

If this didn’t help your problem, let me know and I will see if I can update this entry.

Tags: 2407wfp, notebook, resolution, screen, ubuntu, widescreen

Posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 7:52 pm in Linux.
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