[GLLUG] changing X-windows screen resolution on a laptop

[Matt Graham]

On Wednesday 11 August 2004 14:47, after a long battle with technology, 
Ashton Shortridge wrote:
> I've had a lot of fun installing Linux on my generic laptop, and have
> kind of a dumb question. Xwindows

"X" or "The X Window System", not "Xwindows".

> allows one to change resolution by hitting Ctrl-Alt-+ -- this works 
> fine on my desktop box. However, the plus and minus keys are on the 
> keypad... which my laptop lacks! After some googling has left me high 
> and dry

Most laptops have a NumLock key that turns uiop into 456*, jkl; into 
123-, and m,./ into 0,.+.  IBM Thinkpads use a weird keycode for their 
NumLock key, so you have to do "xmodmap -e 'keycode 77 = NumLock' ".  
If that doesn't work for whatever reason, you can always use "xvidtune 
-next" or "xvidtune -prev" to cycle through all the resolutions you 
have defined in XF86Config.  For extra fun, use xbindkeys to bind an 
unused key combination to "xvidtune -next" so you can switch 
resolutions with one key combination instead of typing a command.  HTH,

-- 
  Back in my day, all we had were 0's.  We painted them different colors
  to tell them apart.  Once this started bogging the processes down, we
  switched to naming them.  I still miss Bob.  --skritch on a.f.c (1998)
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see