I have a TV and my monitor connected to my PC by a VGA switch box but what’s annoying is they aren’t the same resolution. This causes problems because I can’t see what I’m doing when I have switched to TV and usually have to leave the setting manager open so that when I [...]]]>

I have a TV and my monitor connected to my PC by a VGA switch box but what’s annoying is they aren’t the same resolution. This causes problems because I can’t see what I’m doing when I have switched to TV and usually have to leave the setting manager open so that when I change between them I just have to hit return and the resolution changes. That’s great and all but it’s far more effort than I want for something I do fairly often.

My plan was initially to create two xorg.conf files and switch between them using a script, I figured this would be the easiest way even though I haven’t messed around with xorg stuff for a few years ever since things just started working better in Linux. Turns out I couldn’t even find where they keep the xorg.conf file, it sure isn’t in /etc/X11 where it was the last time I looked..

On the search for this file though I came across another useful tool called xrandr, which essentially allows you to change the resolution from the command line.

Xrandr is used to set the size, orientation and/or reflection of the outputs for a
screen. It can also set the screen size.

If invoked without any option, it will dump the state of the outputs, showing the
existing modes for each of them, with a ‘+’ after the preferred mode and a ‘*’
after the current mode.

There are a few global options. Other options modify the last output that is spec‐
ified in earlier parameters in the command line. Multiple outputs may be modified
at the same time by passing multiple –output options followed immediately by
their corresponding modifying options.

For more information on xrandr check out the manual page (or type man xrandr in terminal).

It turns out it’s an extremely easy tool to use, with a command as simple as the following changing the resolution:

So the next thing I did was create the following script which allows the resolution to switch between 1440×900 and 1360×768 (my monitor and my TV native resolutions).

This script simply checks what the current resolution is being used and then toggles between the two set resolutions.

If you’re running off a live USB disk or changing your graphics card the error below might appear when Xorg is looking for the wrong drivers or device. You might also get this error while using the Nvidia drivers, I found however this was caused by some of the extra options added into the [...]]]>

If you’re running off a live USB disk or changing your graphics card the error below might appear when Xorg is looking for the wrong drivers or device. You might also get this error while using the Nvidia drivers, I found however this was caused by some of the extra options added into the xorg.conf file (usually located /etc/X11/xorg.conf). If the case is that it’s a problem with the aditional options I suggest making a backup of the file and attempting to comment out (#) aditional options, this will need a bit more of an expert eye to see what isn’t needed though.. You can also use the following to rollback to a working version when using the Nvidia drivers.

There is a pretty simple fix, if it is caused by broken or changed xorg.conf file:

Fix:
Make a backup of your current Xorg.conf, just in case something goes even more wrong and it can be easily restored:

Now you’ll want to restore the failsafe (sometimes called xorg.conf.backup) config to be used as the default:

Yeah, it was that simple (if this error was caused by a broken or changed xorg.conf anyway. So you can continue and start the x server with:

Error: