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31 10 2006

Getting the Screen Resolution to 1440×900 in Ubuntu

Posted by: Steven Pickles in Linux, Ubuntu

One of the annoying things right out of the box is that the default screen resolution (1440×900) is not automatically detected. Instead, Ubuntu and Xwindows shows 1024×768 — which on this screen looks horrible on a widescreen LCD. Fortunately, this problem is easily fixed.

Open the terminal and run the following command:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xerver-xorg

Go through the menus choosing the defaults and when given resolution options make sure to select the 1440×900 resolution. Once finished, restart X by hitting Ctrl+Alt+Backspace (save any unsaved work before doing this). Upon restarting the server the screen resolution should be set to 1440×900.

Now this solves the resolution issue in X but what about during startup or shutdown?

Before:

Ubuntu 1024x768

After:

Ubuntu 1440x900

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 09:57 am and is filed under Linux, Ubuntu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Getting the Screen Resolution to 1440×900 in Ubuntu”

  1. rcarter says:
    September 7th, 2007 at 09:12 am

    I believe you mean (forgot the “s” in “xserver-xorg”:

    sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

  2. acrididae says:
    September 25th, 2007 at 09:17 pm

    Thanks for this solution!

  3. Jesper Neve says:
    October 9th, 2007 at 05:24 pm

    Hi!
    I have a hp dc7200 with a Samsung SyncMaster 940BW. I have tried every (I think) suggestion on the Ubuntu website. Nothing works, it is still 1280×1024. I will soon start to love Microsoft, I am running Vista (dual boot), Vista works perfectly fine. Any suggestion?
    best regards
    jesnev

  4. daigoro says:
    January 8th, 2008 at 09:43 pm

    hours!! hours trying to get it right! you saved my sleep!

    thanks!

  5. danleis says:
    January 24th, 2008 at 09:54 am

    Hi!

    I should think, it depends on the video card driver as well. I have an HP 8510p with ATI Radeom Mobility HD 2600 (runs with driver for ATI Radeon HD 2600 which is almost the same) on Ubuntu Gutsy. I’d like to use a Samsung SyncMaster 940BW as an external monitor. I’ve read as much info as I could find on the topic, but still couldn’t manage to get 1440×900. I’ve created xorg.conf files for one monitor, for two monitors. I was trying to set the Modeline attributes. I used xrandr. I tryed both with xserver-xgl and xserver-xorg. Everything works fine, I’ve got compiz, effects, everything… except the damn 1440×900 display. Maybe I should wait for an updated video card driver version… Anyway, any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks

  6. michael says:
    October 14th, 2008 at 08:54 pm

    the command
    sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
    does not bring up a GUI or menu on my machine, but does regenerate the (incorrect) config file.
    does anyone know why this might be so ?

    mrule@Petra:~$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
    xserver-xorg postinst warning: overwriting possibly-customised configuration
    file; backup in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.20081014215203
    mrule@Petra:~$

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