Kubuntu 20.04 - Setting the screen resolution

[vanadiumboy]

In order to set the screen resolution, I click on
Start -> Applications -> Settings -> System Settings

On the left side, under Hardware, I click on Display and Monitor
On the right side, I can select my monitor and choose a resolution and choose a refresh rate, etc.

At the bottom, there is the Apply button.

THE PROBLEM:
When I click on Apply, there is no messagebox with a counter.
Can we do it like Windows, it it displays a messagebox and a 15 s counter. If we don’t click Keep This, it reverts back to the previous resolution.

[jglen490]

That's the way that setting was written. I tried it, and it did what it was told to do. A few seconds later I changed the setting back to what it was before, hit apply and it was back. Maybe I'm being a bit snarky, but all that happened in less than 15 seconds. But, if you believe that Kubuntu Linux should act like Windows, you are welcome to submit a software bug and let the devs prioritize it.

Frankly, I never saw the point of the Windows process, because it leaves Windows in charge whereas Linux puts the user more in charge.

[vanadiumboy]

The reason for having the 15 s messagebox is that a video card/monitor is not like other hardware where you just configure it and it works.
What can happen is that when you choose a certain resolution or a certain frequency, you get no image at all or in the case of modern monitors, they display a beautiful message that says something like “The signal is out of range” or “Please try another resolution.”.

So, if I lose the signal, it is hard for me to change the resolution to back to what it was.

This happened to me recently. Maybe the monitor has a problem or the video card. I don’t know. A certain game that I launched went full screen and I lost the signal.
After some trouble shooting to see what was going on, I found out when I set to 800 x 600 60 Hz, it loses the signal.
Obviously something is odd.

But, it would help if Kubuntu had a timer like Windows has.

Generally what use to happen in the old days with Win 95 is that I tried to set it to a high resolution. Some monitors can handle it. Some could not.
Even today, you can push a monitor to 75 Hz or more and if you are lucky, it works.
I think that Win 95 didn’t have a timer either. Maybe they added it with Win XP.

[claydoh]

More recent version of Plasma seem to have that timer box, at least on Wayland, and at least for scaling on my laptop. I can't change resolutions or refresh rates on this, since it only supports one res and one refresh anyway. Scaling seems a much better way to handle UI sizing on digital monitors.
Kind of annoying, to me, since you use a slider to change the scale factor- there is no screen blanking and no way to go out of the monitor's range or anything so much, like you can in the ancient xorg - older by far than Win95's display mechanism.

So Plasma does have this, but you won't have it in 20.04, so there is little Kubuntu can do to to add it there.

Win95 had timers. Annoying back then, but understandable, I guess.

[vanadiumboy]

Cool. If they added the timer, than I don’t need to make a suggestion.
But I wish we could choose the frequency.
On Win 7, I go into the nVidia control panel and overclock the monitor.
Instead of 60 Hz, I set it to 75 Hz and it can handle it.
I play games so if I can get a higher number, I’m all for it.
Some people buy a 144 Hz gaming monitor.

On Kubuntu, I did not see an option to overclock so I have not tried it. Probably I would have to screw around with some text files that are somewhere.
But that’s ok.

For my problem, I’m going to see if I can bind some keys to run a script that can change the screen resolution. That way, when I lose the signal, I can use a key combo to change the resolution.

Thanks claydoh!