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Ian
Asked: 2009-08-08 12:10:04 +0800 CST

Ubuntu Login Screen Resolution is Off

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I have Ubuntu 9.04 installed in VMWare 6.52. When I login to the machine, the login screen has a strange resolution problem.

Here's an example screen shot of the issue:

(ugh, cant get image shack link to work here.. please follow the link to see the screen shot:

Screen shot

The white line that I drew in there indicates the invisible mouse border. In other words, I can't move my mouse all the way across the entire black area. It stops at where I drew in the white border. The white border does not actually exist on the login screen.

After I log in, the resolution of the desktop appears fine.

ubuntu

4 Answers

  1. General hint for X: Ctrl-Alt-numpadplus and ctrl-alt-numpadminus will cycle forward and back through the resolutions your X server is configured for.

    • 2

  2. The login screen is run by a program called GDM. GDM uses the first resolution listed in your Xorg.conf modeline. In /etc/X11/xorg.conf what does your 'Screen' section have for resolutions?

    Mine, for instance has this:

    Section "Screen"
       Identifier "Default Screen"
    Device "VMWare SVGA"
    Monitor "vmware"

    Subsection "Display"
      Depth       4
      Modes       "640x480"
      ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubSection

    SubSection "Display"
      Depth       8
      Modes       "1280x1024"
      ViewPort     0 0
    EndSubSection

    ... and so on. It lists 1280x1024 at different color depths, as that is the resolution I run. The default 640x480 is what my login/GDM display uses. Try checking that out, and see if moving/changing that around fixes it.

    • 2

  3. Ok, questions:

    1 - Do you have vmware tools installed?

    2 - Has it always been like this, or did a recent upgrade do it?

    3 - How were the graphics during install?

    • 0

  4. You may need to load into GRUB console and manually edit your config files, adding required resolution.

    Various help articles about modif xorg.conf file from console.

    This might help. Same priniciple even though Virtual PC

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