[Techtalk] Switching X resolutions

[Akkana]

Alvin Goats writes:
> > > A trick you can try after X is working right: set up a user for you that
> > > has the screen settings set for those games that want a lower resolution
> > > and different color depth. 
[ ... ]
> Now, if someone out there has the details or know where to find the
> details for this........

I'm sure there's an option somewhere to do this ... but I don't know
what it is.  Perhaps by editing ~/.xserverrc (mentioned but not in much
detail in man startx and man xinit) to add something like a -dpi
argument (mentioned in man Xserver).  man XFree86 also has some good
info -- if all else fails, you could make separate copies of your
XF86Config-4 file, and call them explicitly with -xf86config file.
None of these directly answers your question, so you may have to do
a fair amount of manual reading and fiddling.

However, the easy way to switch resolutions is to use this nifty feature,
which I stumbled upon a while ago in man XFree86 (it's right after the bit
about -xf86config):

       Ctrl+Alt+Keypad-Plus
               Change  video  mode  to  next one specified in the
               configuration file.  This can be disabled with the
               DontZoom XF86Config(5x) file option.

       Ctrl+Alt+Keypad-Minus
               Change video mode to previous one specified in the
               configuration file.  This can be disabled with the
               DontZoom XF86Config(5x) file option.

"Video mode" here means resolution, listed in subsection "Display" of
section "Screen" of your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file.  For instance,
on my laptop, that line says:

                Modes       "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

-- the first is the native resolution of my LCD, the resolution I
normally use; the other two are there in case I want to hook in to
an LCD projector that can only handle 800x600 or 640x480.

There's lots of fun nerd reading in the man pages I mentioned above.
Almost anyone can learn something new about X from reading through them
(I know I do).

	...Akkana