KDE 4 desktop resolution, Xorg.conf or not?

[Cobolt]

I've been running Ubuntu based distros on PCs around me for nearly 3 years and I just installed 9.04 as a fresh install on a PC that was running Ubuntu 7.04. Now after installing the nvidia drivers (180) I went to change the resolution up to 1280x1024 using the gui thingy and it wasnt in the list. So, I reckoned there would be hundreds of people moaning about it on these forums, there are, but none of the threads I've read has a proper solution.
From what I can tell, xorg.conf is not being used to store the resolution and refresh rate settings in KDE4. Or maybe it is? Using nvidia-settings i can change the resolution to anything withing range but, cant write it to xorg.conf, it tells me there is a parsing error.

Failed to parse existing X config file '/etc/X11/xorg.conf'

My xorg.conf is basically empty

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier    "Default Screen"
	Monitor        "Configured Monitor"
	Device        "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Module"
	Load	"glx"
	Disable	"dri2"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
	Driver	"nvidia"
EndSection

What can I do to get the machine to start up with 1280x1024 or 1152 x 864 (probably better). The video card is a 6600GT and the monitor is a 17"CRT.
Thanks in advance.

[lmilano]

Re: KDE 4 desktop resolution, Xorg.conf or not?

How about from System Settings, does that fail, too? I think this is unrelated to KDE, and really and xorg thing, they moved a lot of stuff (optionally, AFAIK) out of the xorg.conf file ...

[dibl]

Re: KDE 4 desktop resolution, Xorg.conf or not?

Aha -- an nVidia card.

OK, if you're running the proprietary nVidia driver, then here's how to do it:

1. Alt-F2 "kdesudo nvidia-settings"

2. In the "X Configuration" tab, set the resolution as you want it for default. Leave "refresh" set to "Auto".

3. After it changes and you confirm that it is right, click the "Save to X Configuration File" button in the lower right corner, and then "OK" or "Save" or whatever the popup asks.

That's it.

If you're using "nv", then you can do it by launching system-settings -- I haven't done it lately, but I think it is

dbus-launch systemsettings

or something close to that.

[Cobolt]

Re: KDE 4 desktop resolution, Xorg.conf or not?

Firstly: The problem was resolved.

I'm using proprietary drivers. fglrx i think?
I was basically doing what you said, but nvidia-settings kept giving an error when i tried to write to xorg.conf. I told me there was an error parsing xorg.conf. I unfortunately didn't write down the exact problem, but what happened was:
There is a setting in the KDE control panel: It's a check box saying 'ctlr+Alt+backspace' restarts X server. I knew this was disabled by default and i liked it for when things go wrong. So I enabled it. This wrote that setting to Xorg.conf. When nvidia-settings tried to parse that part, it caused an error.

What I did was backup my old xorg.conf and then make a new one using nvidia-settings by deleting the old one. The new file works perfectly.