offer to set higher screen resolutions if autodetection fails

[Martin Pitt]

I know three different computers where the screen resolution cannot be detected (in my case, detection does not work with the DVI cable, just works fine with the analog VGA cable). The installer CD asks for the resolution then. But the live CD doesn't, it just assumes 1024x768, and a normal user does not even have a possiblity to change it with System -> Settings -> Resolution.

This problem is aggravated by the takeover of espresso as primary installer: since the espresso-installed sytem just seems to copy xorg.conf, it inherits the same problem.

I can think of the following solutions, in decreasing preference:

 * Trust the user's decision if he explicitly set a resolution in gfxboot and use it if xresprobe fails.
 * Ask the user in a debconf-like question (I understand that the live CD is not designed for this any more, though).
 * Allow to set higher resolutions in System -> Settings -> Resolution (not so easy to discover).

Thanks!

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

This is by design; the live CD is not meant to ask questions

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Alright, then it seems only option 3 is left.

* Allow users to set higher resolutions in System -> Settings -> Resolution (not so easy to discover).

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto (fabbione)]

I need to think a bit about this situation. It is theoretically doable, but there are some some corner cases i need to think about because i am sure it was done before and it was breaking something else.

Martin would you be dealing to test a custom live with a custom xorg.conf?

Fabio

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

@Fabio: sure, I'd be happy to test a demo amd64 live CD here; resolution detection fails on my desktop.

[David Hart (dhart)]

+1

Some modern F4 VGA options would be nice, for cases where xresprobe can't figure things out.

On a tangent, I'm creating a custom Ubuntu Desktop CD from 6.10 (Reconstructor is great!), and it would be nice to change the default resolution somewhere in a config file (perhaps this is already possible, but I can't find the file... changes to /usr/share/xresprobe/xorg.conf have no effect, and in /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults, gconf:/desktop/gnome/screen/default/0/resolution is unset)

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Given that the resolution of this bug is to allow users to set higher resolutions in the gnome screen resolution tool, then this is a dupe of 27508. Marking as such.