No Options Available for Readable Resolution

Removing Firefox association as this is not a firefox issue.

Thank you for taking the time to report this issue and helping to make Ubuntu better. Examining the information you have given us, this does not appear to be a bug report so we are closing it and converting it to a question in the support tracker. We appreciate the difficulties you are facing, but it would make more sense to raise problems you are having in the support tracker at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu if you are uncertain if they are bugs. For help on reporting bugs, see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#When%20not%20to%20file%20a%20bug.

Can you please provide the output of:

lspci | grep -i vga; uname -a; lsb_release -c

Thanks

philmorew@omega:~$ lspci | grep -i vga; uname -a; lsb_release -c
00:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 SE] (rev 01)
Linux omega 2.6.28-15-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 9 10:48:52 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Codename: jaunty
philmorew@omega:~$

As to Micah Gersten <email address hidden> issue as to whether this should be reported as a bug or a question, I look at it both ways. Firstlly, although various efforts to obtain a readable solution have given zero to up to four alternative resolutions in the Preferences / Display drop down menu, any attempt to switch results in a unreadable, skewed display, leaving me to reinstall Ubuntu from the beginning. I'd call that a bug, and I think that most would agree.

However, sometimes there are bug workarounds to crutch a software failure such as this, which is why I present(ed) it both as a bug and a question.

So, that given, we/I know it's a bug, but is there a workaround?

Thanks,

Phil

When you try out
System
  Preferences
    Appearence
In the new Window take Visual Effects
If you change to Extra: does it suggest to install proprietary drivers?

Or from the other side:
System
  Administration
    Hardware Drivers
Is there any hardware driver from ATI which is NOT activated?

Ernst,

System / Preferences / Appearance goes through the motions and gives "Desktop effects could not be enabled", so that would be a no.

System / Administration / Hardware Drivers immediately responses with "no proprietary drivers are in use on this system", so that would be a no as well.

What's been frustrating all along the way has been the fact that both the monitor and adapter have been recognized and a great deal of configuration information provided in the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file, such as:

(--) PCI:*(0@0:5:0) ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 SE] rev 1, Mem @ 0xc8000000/134217728, 0xfebf0000/65536, I/O @ 0x0000e800/256, BIOS @ 0x????????/131072
(II) Open ACPI successful (/var/run/acpid.socket)

and:

(II) VESA(0): Supported VESA Video Modes:
(II) VESA(0): 720x400@70Hz
(II) VESA(0): 640x480@60Hz
(II) VESA(0): 640x480@67Hz
(II) VESA(0): 640x480@72Hz
(II) VESA(0): 640x480@75Hz
(II) VESA(0): 800x600@56Hz
(II) VESA(0): 800x600@60Hz
(II) VESA(0): 800x600@72Hz
(II) VESA(0): 800x600@75Hz
(II) VESA(0): 832x624@75Hz
(II) VESA(0): 1024x768@60Hz
(II) VESA(0): 1024x768@70Hz
(II) VESA(0): 1024x768@75Hz
(II) VESA(0): 1280x1024@75Hz

but when I was able to configure a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, it just came back with a message saying "no drivers were available".

Currently the default installation drivers are:

X.Org X server -- ATI display driver wrapper
X.Org X server -- ATI Radeon display driver

but I also tried the "fglrx" version also without success.

Again, any thoughts would be appreciated.

Phil

1 you told us, that you could switch to 1024x768 and had a scewed display (!!!!)
2 you told us, that you had do reinstall after tryouts.
3 you had no problems with 8.04 and now you have.
4 you can not activate Desktop effects (and as far as I understood it didn't even ask you to install proprietary software)

Very strange combination. Especially #4

When you open System / Administration / Software Sources
Is the line Propriety drivers for devices (restricted) activated?
If not try this out first and see, what's happening when retrying the Visual Effects

You could check out, if something went wrong with updates by opening a terminal and

sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get --fix-missing install
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove

To avoid any risk to your installation, I in your position would try out a life Session with your Ubuntu CD and see, if you have the same problems there.
If not, than something happened to your installation.
If yes, you can play around in the life environement without any risk.

If you have no Live CD you can get it here: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

Ernest,

The System / Administration / Software Sources - Propriety drivers for devises (restricted) is checked. I have made no changes from the system installation defaults.

OK, I'll try the live session from the installation disk and see how that performs.

As an FYI, this is the contents of /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Device"
        Identifier "Configured Video Device"
        Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

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

which is the untouched version from the current installation suggesting to me that the installation is dynamically reconfigured with each startup.

I'll get back with you on the Live disk test.

Thanks,

Phil

Ernest,

OK, I tried the Live CD test from a cold boot and it iterated a couple of times but each iteration failed, so that would be a qualified no. I say qualified no because before I did the 9.04 install I did the same test and it worked. I did not, however, look at the Display configuration or at the resolution of the working display assuming that I could make 9.04 work like 8.04. This "suggests" to me that the Live Disk installation takes a peek at the hard disk for clues on what the resolution preferences are, which while interesting, is nothing more.

Insofar as your

sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get --fix-missing install
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove

I'm not savy enough on that approach to know the implications, but prefer not to do anything that could/would cause me to have current for future problems beyond the current Display problem 'cause it takes many hours to get to where I am at this point.

Some additional information:

/System / Preferences / Display shows a refresh rate of "0 hz", Detect Monitors does nothing, Monitor shows "Unknown" and the Resolution: 4 (options), which fail when selected and applied, requiring a reinstall when I can't get to the CNTL/ALT PFK text login screen to login and reset the xorg.conf file if changed. Typically if I try selecting and applying a new resolution, the xorg.conf file is not changed, but requires a cold boot to clear things up and do a successful startup.

"Many" references can be found on Google with folks having the same or very similar difficulty although most seem to trail off during 2007. Although most never posted a solution, those that did netted out to failure on the current version of Ubuntu.

Thanks for your efforts.

Phil

Phil,
the more you answer the puzzled I am ;-)

my whole sudo sauce is doing no harm to your installation but an approach to install parts, which did not install due to several problems (interrupts in the connection etc.)
But before you shot yourself very elegant into your foot - which is hard to do, but can be done very precisely I suggest 2 approaches.

First you could simply change your default font size because as far as I have understood, the only cause of your modification is, that you have problems to read.
System / Preferences / Appearance
Go to Fonts and change the size.
o.k. you are right, this is no "solution" to the problem itself, but it helps :)

The second approach is: We have only 11 days left when Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 is coming out. You could go and download the beta and see, if it works better for you (as a Life CD). As my partially old hardware (TV card, Scanner), which has not worked with 9.04 works with this beta, there is a chance that it will also work with your hardware.

Refresh rate 0 is a horror
Unknown Monitor the same horror

Besides:
If you have to repair something on a configuration file: Make a life session, open Places / Computer, klick on your drive and repair the conf. There is NO need to reinstall (in most cases!)
And if you make a backup of the files BEFORE you have to fumble in the open heart, the whole procedure is a question of a quarter of an hour at maximum.

Sorry for beeing no better help for you

oooops
This was no suggestion to install it now as a beta, but a hint to wait untill it's ready ;-)

Phil,
this 'sudo apt-get ...' commands don't mean anything weird. The just mean to update and clean out the package management via command line CLI, which you can also do with Synaptic.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Howto
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticHowto

To be honest, I've tested and installed Karmic daily build and it's running flawless since three weeks, no serious issues at all.
No xorg.conf anymore to deal with, everything works with GUI preferences -> display
However, did you try from Recovery Mode the option: fix Xserver
Because it seems your installation didn't run well, it doesn't recognize the driver and resolution correctly according to xorg.conf:
Driver "vesa" ## is the default driver
An example xorg.conf could look like this:
Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "Configured Monitor"
 Option "PreferredMode" "1024x768"
EndSection

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

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Configured Video Device"
 Driver "radeon" ## or make it "ati"
EndSection

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution

To see which resolutions are possible via CLI:
xrandr

Get current information via CLI:
xdpyinfo | grep dimensions
xdpyinfo | grep resolution

To grep specifics in Xorg.0.log via CLI e.g.:
grep -i error /var/log/Xorg.0.log
grep WW /var/log/Xorg.0.log
grep -i fail /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old

Anyway, if you have made a separate /home partition a reinstallation isn't a hassle really. Otherwise you can use tar to pack all your important data and files, unpack it on a new installation.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BackupYourSystem/TAR

Sam / Earnst,

Here's the output from xrandr:

philmorew@omega:/var/log/apache2$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 1280 x 1024
default connected 1280x1024+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1280x1024 0.0*
   1024x768 0.0
   800x600 0.0
   640x480 0.0
philmorew@omega:/var/log/apache2$

which are the ones that Display Resolutions: show. If I could successfully select and apply 1024x768 I'd be in fat city, but doing so just gives me an unintelligible screen and since it doesn't ask for confirmation and revert back to a working screen when a confirmation is not received, then I'm left to my own devices to get back to an operable state.

Insofar as a valid xorg.conf, i've gone that route without success. My /var/log/ (58565 2009-10-19 10:33 Xorg.0.log) is full of correct monitor and adapter information, which is apparently used in the creation of a dynamic xorg.conf, but which is not stored in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

Given that I've got a lot of work I need to get done, I think I'll go with Ernst's suggestion and wait for the Karmic 9.10 as a potential resolution for my difficulties. During the interim although it puts a strain on my eyes I can see the screen reasonably well, so for the moment I think I'll just consider myself fortunate to be able to use a distribution as nice and full featured as Ubuntu at any resolution.

Soooo, with that I think I'll close out this issue and await Karmic 9.10.

Thanks Ernst / Sam for your valuable assistance in this matter.

Phil