Higher-res external monitors under X

[Jesse Guardiani]

Jamie Bowden wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Jesse Guardiani wrote:
>> Jesse Sheidlower wrote:
> 
>> > I'm running XFree86 4.3.0 on an IBM ThinkPad X23 under FreeBSD 4.8,
>> > with Gnome/Metacity. The built-in screen has a maximum resolution of
>> > 1024x768. I would like to be able to plug in an external monitor and
>> > have that monitor display with a higher resolution, without having to
>> > restart X (and thus have to shut down all my running X apps, etc.).
> 
>> > How can I accomplish this, if it's even possible?
> 
>> I don't think it is possible. Maybe someday soon though. The new RandR
>> extensions should allow for on-the-fly resolution changes, but
>> unfortunately I don't think any window managers have taken advantage of
>> the new functionality yet. I think I saw KDE support in CVS though, so
>> it should be available soon.
> 
> Unless something has changed, as long as you have valid modelines for all
> display devices and resolutions you plan on having X output to, ctrl-alt-+
> and ctrl-alt-- are your friends.

This has the obvious disadvantage that it doesn't resize the desktop. RandR
will resize the desktop as well as the viewable resolution. I've never much
liked virtual desktops, personally.

-- 
Jesse Guardiani, Systems Administrator
WingNET Internet Services,
P.O. Box 2605 // Cleveland, TN 37320-2605
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