Ubuntu 8.04 signon display exceeds screen size

Hello, Bill.

Would you mind posting your xorg.conf?

On Sat, 2009-05-16 at 02:44 +0000, Bryan Basil wrote:
> Your question #71308 on ubuntu-docs in ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-docs/+question/71308
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> Bryan Basil proposed the following answer:
> Hello, Bill.
>
> Would you mind posting your xorg.conf?
>

I'm a newbie to Linux, what's "xorg.conf" ??
Bill

The xorg.conf file is used for configuring the X server. This one file has the ability to enhance or destroy your machine. :-)

Anyway, open up your favorite shell (the Terminal) and type "gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf" You will be asked for your password. It is important that you do not change anything in the file, and if you accidentally do, do not save it. Just Right-Click --> Select All --> Copy, and Paste here.

Thanks a lot, Bill. We'll fix you up, and soon you'll be no newbie. :-)

Thanks Bryan. Since your request for xorg configuation I'd done a search
then got on the terminal, used gksudo and fumbled around. At one point
it said "apparently changing a custom configuration" so may have already
shot myself in the foot, ha!

I appreciate your help, understand your instructions, but it's been a
long day and I am a little rummy and DANGEROUS. I'm not in a panic and
hope its OK with you if I bag it and start again tomorrow.

Bill

Sure, Bill.

See you then. :-)

G'morning Bryan

At the terminal command line I entered the string "gksudo
gedit /etc/xqq/xorg.conf", got an editor screen but blank. Puzzled, I
clicked on "OPEN". It responded with a new box saying: "Error stating
file '/etc/x11': No such file or directory"

Maybe I blasted the file in the brief period I fooled around on the
command line last night. I rebooted before I quit last night to make
sure the "big offset logon image" Problem was still there, and it was.
The only thing different....I shut off all AC power to the
computer/monitor/printer when I went to bed. This morning when I started
the computer I got the Ubuntu logo filling about 35% of the screen, BUT
DIFFERENT, the prompt for name/password, while stilll very large, was
centered in the screen. And also DIFFERENT, after entries and completion
of the boot, the screen remains in a large format. In other words, while
it's not the 1280x1024 I want and had after booting, it now looks
totally CONSISTENT.

If I wasn't in a dialog with you about this, I'd do a gksudo
displayconfig-gtk, expect to be able to choose 1280x1024 and see if it
now will stay consistent at the desired screen resolution. But I will
wait to hear from you before I do anything else.

This Question resolution system lets us terminate this dialog the
instant things start working. So I better take this opportunity to say
"Thanks". In the 70s U wire wrapped a Z80 and wrote CP/M BIOS for my own
CRT display, and in the 80s was doing Turbo Pascal stuff to run my EPROM
burner in an IBM PC clone. But my ability to interact with the system
and have any idea what was going on has been crippled by the opacity of
Windows. This brief interaction with you is a breath of fresh air. Maybe
there is Life after Windows, even for duffers. Again, my thanks Bryan.

Bill

Firstly, Bill, thank you for your kind words.

Secondly, capitalization very much matters in UNIX, or GNU (Gnu is Not Unix), so /etc/x11 does not exist, while /etc/X11 does. You can copy and paste the command I wrote up there, because the copy and paste functions indeed work in terminals.

About the "gksudo displayconfig-gtk," you might as well, it can't hurt anything. :-)

I know about capitalization, my eyes just didn't see the <cap>X11. And
you're right, get the case right and it works:

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool,
using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades
*only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically
updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
 Driver "kbd"
 Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
 Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
 Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Configured Mouse"
 Driver "mouse"
 Option "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Configured Video Device"
 Option "UseFBDev" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 Monitor "Configured Monitor"
 Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

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

I'll not do anything with configdisplay until you've had a chance to
look at this. One thing at a time!

Bill

Bill, can you tell me what kind of graphics card you have?

There's no discrete video board: it's built on the motherboard using
shared RAM. It's a cheapie eMachines W3644 with Winfast N15235 mother
board, an AMD CPU, Pheonix Bridge D686 BIOS.

On previous encounters with displayconfig-gtk I picked the 1280x1024
resolution for the 19" LCD monitor.

Could you post what your machine thinks it is? "sudo lspci"

Look for VGA. :-)

I'll be back tonight, I'm off to graduation. I'm sorry for the wait. You can try "gksudo displayconfig-gtk" and report here how it works.

Talk to you then. :-)

I'm back to where I started it seems. SignOn expanded in lower right
corner, once system boots display is fine. Here's xorg.conf

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool,
using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades
*only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically
updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
 Driver "kbd"
 Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
 Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
 Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
 Identifier "Configured Mouse"
 Driver "mouse"
 Option "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Configured Video Device"
 Boardname "VESA driver (generic)"
 Busid "PCI:0:13:0"
 Driver "nv"
 Screen 0
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "Configured Monitor"
 Vendorname "Generic LCD Display"
 Modelname "LCD Panel 1280x1024"
 Horizsync 31.5-64.0
 Vertrefresh 56.0 - 65.0
  modeline "640x480@60" 25.2 640 656 752 800 480 490 492 525 -vsync
-hsync
  modeline "800x600@56" 36.0 800 824 896 1024 600 601 603 625 +hsync
+vsync
  modeline "800x600@60" 40.0 800 840 968 1056 600 601 605 628 +hsync
+vsync
  modeline "1024x768@60" 65.0 1024 1048 1184 1344 768 771 777 806
-vsync -hsync
  modeline "1280x960@60" 102.1 1280 1360 1496 1712 960 961 964 994
-hsync +vsync
  modeline "1280x1024@60" 108.0 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066
+hsync +vsync
 Gamma 1.0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
 Identifier "Default Screen"
 Monitor "Configured Monitor"
 Device "Configured Video Device"
 Defaultdepth 24
 SubSection "Display"
  Depth 24
  Virtual 1280 1024

Modes "800x600@60" "1024x768@60" "800x600@56" "1280x960@60" "640x480@60" "1280x1024@60"
 EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
 Identifier "Default Layout"
  screen 0 "Default Screen" 0 0
EndSection
Section "Module"
 Load "glx"
 Load "GLcore"
 Load "v4l"
EndSection
Section "ServerFlags"
EndSection

I am also out tonight and probably won't have my wits about me by the
time I get home.
In displayconfig I looked for my Princeton monitor, a VL173 but didn't
see it listed. Tomorrow I'll dig around and see if I can find the
literature here, or on Internet, and an equivalent model on the
displayconfig list.

Bill

Bill, in the morning, run "gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf" again, and erase, in the "monitor" section, every mode other than 1280x1024.

Then, in the "screens" section, delete, in the "modes" subsection, everything other than "1280x1024@60".

Have a good night. :-)

> Bryan Basil proposed the following answer:
> Could you post what your machine thinks it is? "sudo lspci"

All the onboard I/O seemed to be nVidia based. I tried other video
controllers, some worked and some did nt, and I came back to nVidia VGA
compatible controller. I think there was only one nVidia choice.

00:00.0 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a1)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 LPC Bridge (rev a2)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SMBus (rev a2)
00:01.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Memory Controller (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation MCP61 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:04.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI bridge (rev a1)
00:05.0 Audio device: nVidia Corporation MCP61 High Definition Audio
(rev a2)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 IDE (rev a2)
00:07.0 Bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 Ethernet (rev a2)
00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation MCP61 SATA Controller (rev a2)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation MCP61 PCI Express bridge (rev a2)
00:0d.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 6100
nForce 405 (rev a2)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron]
Miscellaneous Control

Bill

> Bill, in the morning, run "gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf" again, and
> erase, in the "monitor" section, every mode other than 1280x1024.
>
> Then, in the "screens" section, delete, in the "modes" subsection,
> everything other than "1280x1024@60".

BINGO?

Now it comes on with text screen showing bootable devices and OS, BIG
"Ubuntu" signon with horizontal thermometer centered on screen. But with
removal of the other options the logon graphics/box is consistent with
1280x1024 and centered in the screen.

Bill

One more thing. As I said before, I'm VERY impressed with your support.
Is there a vehicle for ME to support you guys?

Bill

I'm applying for Ubuntu membership in about a month. ;-)

If you're serious, you can go to my wiki page (wiki.ubuntu.com/BslBryan) and leave me a testimonial by clicking "edit" and posting one under the "= Testimonials =" mark.

Anyway, have I effectively solved this for you, or should we fix the Usplash now? I think I have an idea. :-)

Removing "unused" resolutions from xorg.conf produced an on-screen logon screen.
The initial "Ubuntu" screen and horizontal thermometer is still large, but centered. I'll try Envy as an intellectual curiosity.

I am thankful for, and impressed by the support received from Bryan Basil. How do you do it?

Again, Bill, thank you very much for your kind words. :-)

As a warning, Envy might screw you up. There is a far simpler solution for fixing the Ubuntu screen, if you'd like. Just keep me posted.

Actually, you are using an nVIDIA driver, it seems, as I take another look at your xorg.conf. There's no reason to use Envy, actually. It still might, however, screw you up, so I wouldn't suggest it.

OK, your warning already had me thinking I should leave well enough
alone.

I have Mark Sobell's "Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux", written for
7.10. Guess it's time to sit down and do some reading and get more
comfortable with what I have. For example, howinhell did I end up with
NVidia drivers in the first place? I guess Linux is reading the plug and
play signatures of the motherboard peripherals?

And I chopped the original eMachine 130 GB SATA drive into pieces with
multiple versions of Ubuntu over the last year. I Presume its the BIOS
that shuts the drive motor down, and I either need to figure out how to
get the 300 GB drive I hung on the DVD/CDROM cable to shut down, or I
need to learn how to repartition the SATA drive and move 8.04 there.

I downloaded and made a 8.10 CDROM. I couldn't get 1280 x 1024
resolution quickly to returned to 8.04. Is there a strong reason for a
fairly casual user to persue 8.10 at this point? It doesn't come up in
1280x1024 and the displayconfigure-gtk didn't work for me.

Hey, lots of puzzles out there to tackle, eh? But for now I have to
spray Roundup on the weeds sprouting between the bricks on the patio and
do another few hours of weed trimming.

Bill

As a student, I am enjoying summer break before going off to college. 8.04 is the stable version, and that is certainly what I need for now: stability. When I need to get work done, the bleeding edge, while it holds interest and curiosity, is not for me.

Anyway, let's see if we can fix your Usplash size. :-)

Okay, open up a terminal and run "gksudo gedit /etc/usplash.conf"

Then, in the "xres=" field, write 800, and in the "yres=" field, write 600.

After this, run a "update-initramfs -uk `uname -r`"

You're better off just to copy and paste these commands into your terminal, because it's much quicker and less error-prone, I think.

I really hope this helps. :-) Sorry about the late reply, as well. I hope you had luck killing the weeds.

The xres and yres in usplash were already 800x600. Guess my eyes need
calibration.

I was a student once. I flunked out of Berkeley, but eventually figured
out how to study and became an EE. Technical careers are a lot more
rewarding, both financially and mentally, than what most people HAVE to
do to make a living. With talent and a degree to back it up you can do
well.

Since we communicated yesterday I've cleaned off the old partitions in
the 130 GB drive, built a second bootable 8.04 system on it just to
prove I could do it. Last night I realized the air cleaner of the weed
eater was plugged up and it's cutting better. Weeds, then off to a
Corvette meet in Billings, Montana next weekend. I have been reading
Sobell, now with a little more understanding thanks to your keyboarding
instructions. I think a RAID attempt is in my future. You probably have
no idea how much of a boost you've provided.

Enjoy college Bryan.

Bill

Again, Bill, thank you very much, for everything.

It's a shame I couldn't help you with the bootsplash, though. Anyway, if the second version of Ubuntu 8.04 is configured correctly (no large Ubuntu splash) then it's possible to mount your first partition as a drive, and you can get all of your files from your first install onto your second, if you like.

Corvette meeting, eh? I assume you mean the Chevrolet car. Have you been to the museum in Bowling Green, KY?

Thank you very much, again, Bill.

I've actually put all my old files back onto both hard drives. It's
still not perfect, but between your command-line suggestions and reading
Sobell, which supplemented what you told me to do, I think I'm moving in
the forward direction again. I don't have the document viewers and some
other odds and ends I picked up in the past year but those are
reasonably easy to replace (or upgrade).

I originally screwed up my old Ubuntu when I tried to do a backup to the
external USB drive. I tried to run something that had a graphical
interface, as I recall. I clearly remember that it never worked!
Something in the system remained, I suspect was periodically trying to
bring up a piece of hardware. Every few minutes the display would freeze
for 5 seconds. That's what prompted me to try building a clean system.

I'm reading Sobell's info on doing backups. He talks about 'amanda',
'tar', and gives some command line examples. I need to automate this
process and learn how to write scripts (which I haven't done since the
DOS BATCH file days). If you have strong feelings about a particular
program that would point me in the right direction.

And since we're still talking, today when I booted and brought up
evolution I got a dialog box that said "Enter password for default
keyring to unlock". THe next line said "The application
'evolution' (/usr/bin/evolution) wants access to the default keyring,
but it is locked". Then prompts for a password. Sobell's index doesn't
have the word "keyring". I wonder if I restored evolution onto the new
system and that's its reaction?

I have a friend in North Carolina that I visit every year or two. Once I
spent the night in Bowling Green and took a plant tour the next morning.
Folks nodded at the visitors and didn't look like they hated their jobs,
and that was nice. I had a '79 that was a dog but the new ones are
really good cars, and I enjoy driving across country rather than flying.
My wife can't stand more than 8-9 hours at a time so when she goes with
me it's not a two day drive.

Bill

On Wed, 2009-05-20 at 03:01 +0000, Bryan Basil wrote:
> Your question #71308 on ubuntu-docs in ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-docs/+question/71308
>
> Bryan Basil posted a new comment:
> Again, Bill, thank you very much, for everything.
>
> It's a shame I couldn't help you with the bootsplash, though. Anyway,
> if the second version of Ubuntu 8.04 is configured correctly (no large
> Ubuntu splash) then it's possible to mount your first partition as a
> drive, and you can get all of your files from your first install onto
> your second, if you like.
>
> Corvette meeting, eh? I assume you mean the Chevrolet car. Have you
> been to the museum in Bowling Green, KY?
>
> Thank you very much, again, Bill.
>

I'm glad you're relearning everything. :-) I keep thinking more and more that I might go with Computer Science as a major and stick to Physics being a hobby. More jobs, more time to relax, an equal love to physics. But anyway, I digress.

You might want to learn Python language. It's pretty common. The best thing about scripting is that you only need to know the languages, and you can specify which you'd like, and simply type what you'd like the program to do. It's simple.

Of course, when you're programming something, the first thing you try to do is produce the text "Hello World!" I like taking on really fun things after that, though, like making text adventure games, and Web Elizas. :-) You might look into it, if you'd like to have some fun.

As far as the keyring thing, that's for Evolution Mail Client, and shouldn't bother you again. It just needed to know that it could have root access.

At least getting your document viewers and office stuff back will be a simple process. Of course, it's always harder when you're just learning (or relearning) ;-)

'79? Wow, what a fox! (Or, a ray, heh.) I'd certainly like to drive one, eventually.

I was lucky, electronics bit me when I was about 12 and it's never let
go. I worked my tush off, got masters at night, and with some luck was
able to semi-retire at 53 so I could build what I wanted. I think it's
easier to excel in something you really enjoy.

Every time the system boots up evolution wants the keyring thing typed
it. Then it's good for the rest of the day. Why did this ever come up?

I can do Pascal or old K&R C. I've heard Python is cool. Learning
another language isn't that difficult, but I wonder if doing elaborate
things on a PC is enough motivation. First I need to get down in the
trenches and learn Linux a little better.

I owned that '79 Vette less than a year. It was geared too low, 3000 rpm
at 60 miles per hour gets tiring, rough ride and only got about 15-16
miles per gallon. The last two models, 1998-2004 "C5" and 2005- "C6" are
world-class cars. My '07 handles better, incredible brakes, less than 10
seconds to 100 mph, yet its easy to drive 12-13 hours without being
tired. It doesn't look like I'll ever own a Ferrari so will keep driving
this car.

Bill

That's my thought process, too. I really enjoy physics, but can I keep up my work on my computer without flunking? That's why I'm thinking computer science is the way to go.

Anyway, this will fix the keyring asking you a thousand times for your password:
"sudo apt-get install build-essential libtool libglib2.0-dev libgnome-keyring-dev libpam0g-dev"

Then download pam_keyring-0.0.8.tar.gz here:
http://www.hekanetworks.com/opensource/pam_keyring/pam_keyring-0.0.8.tar.gz.

Then, open a terminal window, change the directory to where you downloaded tarball (so, if you downloaded to the Desktop you would type "cd Desktop") and do the following at the command line:

"tar -xvvzf pam_keyring-0.0.8.tar.gz"

"cd pam_keyring-0.0.8"

"./configure --prefix=/usr --libdir=/lib"

"make"

"sudo make install"

(Also, when you enter in your password, it will look like nothing is being typed in.)
Then, "sudo gedit /etc/pam.d/gdm"

Then, add the following two lines to the end of the file:

"auth optional pam_keyring.so try_first_pass"
"session optional pam_keyring.so"

Now you can reboot and it should not ask you for your keyring password to log onto your encrypted wireless network.

Also, congratulations on getting an '07 Corvette. What an excellent car. And you never know about that Ferrari. :-)

Whatinhell is all the stuff you have me typing in? An auto-answer for
the "keyring" authorization? I don't have any wireless stuff at all, my
network is all copper. I mean if it gets rid of the nuisance question
fine, but if its due to wireless can I just scratch off that assumption
at boot time?

Tomorrow is last day before head for Yellowstone, Big Sky Montana, then
the weekend car thing in Billings. Might not get a chance to do what you
suggest, depending on how many last-minute things I have to do.

At Berkeley I lived in a house with a guy who got a BS in Physics. He
graduated and went on active duty for a few years (NROTC). I flunked
out, fumbled around a few years, finally finished my Junior year of BSEE
at University of Nevada and got a NASA "scholarship" to a space
technology summer program at Cal Tech. This was 1964 when there was a
pretty bad aerospace slump. One day I was walked over to the pool and I
saw this familiar guy playing tennis. Finally figured out it was the guy
who'd graduated as I flunked out. Can't remember his name any more.
Anyway, we talked and he said "with a MS in Physics, even from Berkeley,
you don't qualify for any of the jobs that are advertised". He was
really bitter about it. He said you needed a PhD to get a good job in
Physics. He said he was living at home, applying for jobs and trying to
keep his spirits up.

The way manufacturing is disappearing I'm not sure I'd want to be an
engineer again. But there's lots of demand for good software people snf
you can probably find something that's interesting and suits you, pursue
advanced degree, or moonlight on wild and crazy startup ideas (sometimes
those pay off!). Lots of flexibility. BUT. I'll say again that you're
most likely to have a rewarding career in what you LIKE to be doing.

Bill

The Network Manager is asking you for your pam keyring so it can get your mail (I guess, since it's Evolution.)

I actually Googled how to stop it to find a tutorial that worked for a great many people, so I gave it to you to try.

If you want to see it in it's original text:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=192281

Anyway, yes, I think that I've made my mind up and that I'm going with Computer Science. I love working with computers, and I guess it was going to a performing arts high school that made me have people skills, know how to shine up a resume, etc. Anyway, I hope you have an excellent trip. :-)