Ubuntu
xorg package

ubuntu 10.10 on virtual pc 2007 display resolution problems

Asked by Dan Gersten

i am trying to get 10.10 running on virtual pc 2007. there is no xorg.conf in the baseline install, so i set about creating one.

i know this problem has been beat to death from other perspectives but i didn't find a workable answer here or using my friend google.

the approach i finally settled in on was building xorg.conf from the ground up, checking the Xorg log with each change i made to check the impact.

i can get the system to give me a choice of resolutions with the following:

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "Default Monitor"
 HorizSync 30-70
 VertRefresh 50-160
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 Monitor "Default Monitor"
 Device "Default Video Card"
 DefaultDepth 16
 SubSection "Display"
  Modes "1280x800"
 EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
 Identifier "Default Layout"
 Screen "Default Screen"
EndSection

when i add:

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Default Video Card"
 Driver "vesa"
 BusID "PCI:0:8:0"
EndSection

and reboot, the desktop window comes up and the vpc is sized to 1280 by something. when i log in, the display size snaps back to a smaller size and the video on the screen is garbled so something happens during the log in process.

if i change the driver back to s3 and reboot the desktop login comes up at 1024 by 768 and after login stays at 1024 by 768.

thru out the process i have not figured out how to get the system to see anything other than "unknown monitor"

question: why does display resolution change between initial login screen and user login?
question: what settings is the desktop login screen using that it is able to be a full size display? where does it get the settings from assuming that the desktop login is running on top of X11.
question: when you do login, where are the settings coming from that would cause X11 to resize itself.

in the meantime i am trying vm server. i didn't realize it was free, but perhaps thats because i was looking at the workstation level product instead of the server level product.

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Dan Gersten
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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Have you installed the Linux additions in the guest?

http://haacked.com/archive/2007/05/06/installing-ubuntu-on-virtual-pc-for-windows-lovers.aspx

Mentions them.

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Dan Gersten (dan-gersten) said : 		#2

i did and the logic inside the install.sh file bails because if i understand the comments in the script its intended for use on redhat.

i've been playing with virtualbox while trying to figure this out. its remarkable how much faster it is, but i haven't made any progress on coming up with an xorg.conf for it.

i also tried vmserver but was unable to get past the download freezing. using akami it always freezes at 99% and using manual it freezes at 109 mb. its clearly something wrong on vmware's side because i tried the download from vista x64, a virtual xp box, and a virtual unbuntu box. the closest you can come to tech support without paying for it is to kavetch about web site problems.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

Virtualbox is probably much easier and they have been doing it a LOT longer than Microsoft. The video driver for Virtualbox is also in a default install.

Did you MD5 test the ISO you downloaded?

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Dan Gersten (dan-gersten) said : 		#4

no. it came from the ubuntu main site.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#5

Doesn't matter where it came from at all, if the data gets damaged in transmission it will cause issues. At present you have no way of knowing if the data is complete or consistent.

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Dan Gersten (dan-gersten) said : 		#6

i realized that after i hit the enter. i picked up md5summer from download.com and then went back to ubuntu but haven't found what the md5 sum's are supposed to be. i'll keep looking around.

fwiw: my 10.10.desktop iso is 59d15a16ce90c8ee97fa7c211b7673a8

====

as a side note, having that iso around is pretty handy when you kill your system with a bad xorg.conf. i mount the iso in the cd and reset the machine. then use the try ubuntu to get an environment up that lets me go back and make changes in the trashed environment. for some reason the tty display is all messed up when i bring up a tty which is supposed to be the preferred way.

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Dan Gersten (dan-gersten) said : 		#7

of course, google is your friend. the hashes are at:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes

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Dan Gersten (dan-gersten) said : 		#8

success on virtualbox

not sure what happened but i started over with a new vm, did a complete install, update, etc and then set about incrementally building an xorg.conf file.

the following lets me have a 1600 by 1200 display in virtualbox

# xorg.conf

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "Default Monitor"
 HorizSync 30-100
 VertRefresh 20-160
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 Monitor "Default Monitor"
 DefaultDepth 24
 SubSection "Display"
  Modes "1600x1200"
 EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
 Identifier "Default Layout"
 Screen "Default Screen"
EndSection

It could be there's more fine tuning but right now i have a usable screen and virtual box runs easily twice as fast as vpc 2007 was.

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Dan Gersten (dan-gersten) said : 		#9

fwiw, i pulled the monitor numbers out of thin air based on the observation that the biggest complaint i found in the xorg log file was that the monitor didn't support the required rate for a given resolution and since this is a virtual display it might as well have virtual superpowers.

i'm leaving the ticket open for a while if anyone wants to contribute (maybe thats not needed but i'm new to this site).

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Mechanical snail (replicator-snail) said : 		#10

Why do you need to fiddle with xorg.conf in VirtualBox? Everything should work automatically (once you install the guest additions, if you need its features). Was there some problem?

Revision history for this message
Dan Gersten (dan-gersten) said : 		#11

installing the baseline image for 10.10 there is no xorg.conf. my desktop has dual radeon hd4800 on which i have two monitors (2560x1600) and (1280x1024). when i start up i am offered 2 resolutions 800x600 and 640x480. this is without installing any updates (272 updates /279Mb pending).

after applying updates, there is no change in resolution capabilities.

installed guest extensions to the vm. no change prior to a restart. after restart, i have full control over display resolution.

so you are correct, there is no need to mess with xorg.conf on virtual box. thanks.

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Dan Gersten (dan-gersten) said : 		#12

one final thing. i found that by having an xorg.conf that specified a resolution less than maximum for the display that it actually inhibited the display from growing with guest additions installed.