On Wed, 24 Sep 2008, Dr Andrew C Aitchison wrote:

> On Tue, 23 Sep 2008, Eve V. E. Kovacs wrote:
>
>>  How does one configure the display for an SL5.2 system?
>>  I have tried running system-config-display to change the resolution,
>>  but nothing happens. xorg.conf is unchanged.
>
> Resolution is now a user-setting* - see
> 	 system / Prefereneces/ Screen Resolution
>
> As far as the system default goes, I think Xorg tries to go
> with the monitor's "preferred" resolution (via DDC/EDID, provided
> that the driver supports that).
>
> *Not sure what happens to users who alternate between systems with
> different screens :-(

What usually happens is 'bad things'.  If you set screen resolution using 
that tool then by default it will try to use that on every machine you log 
into (which share the same gnome prefs).  Note that there is no (user 
visible/simple) mechanism for unsetting it once it is 'set'.

The net result is people play with it and pick something which is fine on 
one display and then discover it is unreadable on another.  I'm tempted to 
hide that option since it is rarely useful.

Anyway tool only works if xrandr is supported/available and if it is then 
there are other simple ways to *temporarily* change resolution.

(I can provide a grandr_applet rpm to anyone who is interested).

  -- Jon