Ubuntu

cannot see the entire "install" window, so can't see "Next" buttons, in 800x600 resolution (the highest option showing in preferences)

Asked by LJS

I have fiesty fawn downloaded on CD and am trying to install it to disk. My video card is an ATI (radeon) 7000 series, and this is detected properly by lspci and shows up properly in /etc/X11/xorg.config. All the modes in xorg.config show high resolutiions, but the preferences utility on the desktop only has 800x600 as the highest resolution. How do you make a higher resolution available in the preference-resolution setting ?? Without a higher resolution, the control buttons of the install window are off the bottom of the screen and the install window cannot be resized or repositioned to use them. This was not a problem with the Kubuntu cd (fiesty fawn) that I tried, but I would like to install ubuntu.

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Dennis Dirdjaja (dcd-ditsch) said : 		#1

Hello and thanks for the question. There are two ways that could resolve that (which come into my mind).

First proposal is to switch to a console (Ctrl+Alt+F1), type sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, go through the questions and finally switch back to the desktop (Ctrl+Alt+F7) and restart it (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace).

Second proposal which might work is starting the live session with vga=791. You just have to add this parameter at the grub prompt.

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Best LJS (alscudder) said : 		#2

Using Knoppix, the screen resolution was fine at 12024x768. At issue are the settings in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. The suggestion by Dennis to reconfigure would have addressed this. Instead, I just copied the xorg.conf file from Knoppix 5.1.1 to Ubunto and ran /etc/init.d/gdm restart. Ubunto then restarted with the 1024x728 screen resolution and had 1024x768 screen resolution listed as an option under preferences screen resolution in the Ubunto sytem menu. And the entire install dialog window is visable on the screen. I think Ubunto is weak in its auto configuration on start up compared to Knoppix. I have several cumpters that Knoppix will start and configure with no problem on which Ubunto cannot even complete a start up sequence.

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LJS (alscudder) said : 		#3

As a postscript to the problem, At the time this problem occured the computer was hooked to an older viewsonic CRT that was not plug and play. When a plug and play LCD monitor was added as an upgrade, the problem went away. So it was not a problem with the ATI card but the monitor not being plug and play compatable. Ubuntu seems to work on newer hardware, has difficulty with hardware that is older.

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tbresson (tbresson) said : 		#4

Even though this problem can be fixed and may not occur on newer hardware it does in fact create several small issues:

1) Some choose Ubuntu because Windows is getting to heavy on their old system.
Sinde their system is old they might run into the problem stated above and they'll probably give up before they even try this wonderful OS.

2) Going into a console is not a very good first impression on first time users.
Even if someone does it for them, they're going to wonder.

3) Virtual machines seems to have this issue aswell (probably because of the low-level virtual-graphics adapter which needs to work on everything).
Lots of people use Virtual machines now a days, this issue is just an added annoyance.

If you look at the menu, it's not THAT big. I mean it doesn't seem impossible to just design the menu for 800x600. Why not just consider this? Or one could perhaps make two versions, one for 800x600 and below and one for 1024x768 and above if the design becomes a problem.

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nathan2103 (nathan2103) said : 		#5

As a novice user, the 800x600 screen is a huge problem. I want to install Ubuntu on my computer but can't see the buttons to click on them. The process to make my screen 1024x728 requires a reboot and I can't install a video driver fix on it when I'm running from 7.10 CD. It seems like I must reboot for the driver to 'take' and that won't do any good when running the OS from a CD.

The install CD should either make the screen work with 800x600 for the installation, or have 1024x728 resolution as the default. Personally I think it should be modified so that 800x600 resolution works.

I tried and can't follow the command line installation. Could someone explain a step by step command line installation or a step by step guide to get 1024x728 resolution without rebooting?

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nathan2103 (nathan2103) said : 		#6

I tried with Ubuntu 6.10 and I can see the installation buttons. I'm going to install 6.10 and hope that upgrading will be easier.

My video is nVidia GeForce6150

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Roger Browne (ozrog) said : 		#7

I am a complete novice with Ubuntu and I need to reset the screen resolution to 1024 x 768.

I tried the remedies suggested by dirdjaja, (I think as described) but had no success. I also tried to find something on the CD to help but to no avail. Help!

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Roger Browne (ozrog) said : 		#8

I tried this all again, having learned a tiny bit more about what to key in. Now the splash screen with 'Ubuntu' and the progress bar has resized to the correct size. But the desktop remains stuck at 800x600. I tried substituting the word 'desktop' for 'usplash' in the commands but it would not run as it said desktop is not installed.

All the hype I have heard about Ubuntu being easy to install and a substitute for Windows is starting to look like hogwash. I have now spent many fruitless hours on this and I am considering abandoning the whole idea. My time is too precious to be wasted like this.

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Dennis Dirdjaja (dcd-ditsch) said : 		#9

Roger,

which graphics card do you use? Did you install a driver for your card?

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Roger Browne (ozrog) said : 		#10

The card is a Trident Microsystems Cyberblade xPAi1 (rev82) The computer is a Toshiba laptop 1800 series.

I have not installed a driver for it, having assumed this would be done with the installation on Ubuntu itself.. Since then I have tried to find a driver for it, but I don't know how to access and search the repositories and find it, if it exists at all.

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Dennis Dirdjaja (dcd-ditsch) said : 		#11

The trident driver is shipped with Ubuntu usually (provided by the package xserver-xorg-video-trident), so there is no need to install. Maybe this is related to https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15937