How to change the screen resolution for the GDM login screen?
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I use a login list with faces and the icons and text are tiny in GDM. Is there an easy way to change the resolution of the login screen? I'm currently using 10.04 Lucid.
On newer systems, you will want to place your monitors.xml file into the gdm configuration directory, the resolution will be picked up there:
This, of course, assumes that you have gon into Settings > Displays, and have selected the resolution you want, click 'Apply', this will create a monitors.xml in .config of your home dir.
Gaurav has the right solution for Ubuntu 10.10 (use "Make Default" in System > Preferences > Monitors), however this requires a bit more work in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. It also means your GDM will have the same resolution as your desktop's.
First find out which resolution your display can take and what its name is. In the following example my laptop display is LVDS-1 and its rated resolution is 1280x800:
$ xrandr -q
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 4096 x 4096
LVDS-1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1280x800 60.1 +
1024x768 59.9*
800x600 59.9
640x480 59.4
720x400 59.6
640x400 60.0
640x350 59.8
VGA-1 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1024x768 60.0
800x600 60.3 56.2
848x480 60.0
640x480 59.9
TV-1 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
720x576 50.0 +
1024x768 50.0
800x600 50.0
720x480 50.0
640x480 50.0
400x300 100.0
320x240 100.0
320x200 100.0
Note in the above output the resolution currently used is marked by an asterisk (*). Next you want to test if such resolution works and find the right command to set it up:
xrandr --output LVDS-1 --mode 800x600x32
In the above command you can change the depth (32 bit) for 24.
Next you want to add such command to the /etc/gdm/Init/Default file before /sbin/initctl ... [1]. The beginning of such file will look like this:
#!/bin/sh
# Stolen from the debian kdm setup, aren't I sneaky
# Plus a lot of fun stuff added
# -George
PATH="/usr/bin:$PATH"
OLD_IFS=$IFS
#if [ -x '/usr/bin/xsplash' ];
#then
# /usr/bin/xsplash --gdm-session --daemon
#fi
xrandr --output LVDS-1 --mode 800x600x32
/sbin/initctl -q emit login-session-start DISPLAY_MANAGER=gdm
Once you've done this you can logout to see the results. I tested this in a VM environment only but it should work on a standard install ("bare metal").
OK for me the answer was in the xorg.conf file. I don't even know exactly what the pertinent lines are, but previously I didn't have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Because I didn't want to screw anything up I didn't really investigate it. After installing a new video card and switching to the Nvidia binary drivers I used the configuration tool to change the screen resolution. However it was not persistent between logins so I tried the "Write settings to xorg.conf file" button. Next time I logged out the user login menu had the same resolution as all the other users screens. I'm sure this would be a problem if everyone wanted different resolutions but for me that isn't the case.
It can be a isolated problem with the current theme. Which theme you are using now in GDM? Did you check if you have the same problem with others themes?
You also can try to reconfigure your GDM using the commands (You will lose your X11 session doing so) below:
On newer systems, you will want to place your monitors.xml file into the gdm configuration directory, the resolution will be picked up there:
This, of course, assumes that you have gon into Settings > Displays, and have selected the resolution you want, click 'Apply', this will create a monitors.xml in .config of your home dir.
sudo cp ~/.config/monitors.xml /var/lib/gdm3/.config/monitors.xml
More details available at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GDM#Setup_default_monitor_settings
Gaurav has the right solution for Ubuntu 10.10 (use "Make Default" in System > Preferences > Monitors), however this requires a bit more work in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. It also means your GDM will have the same resolution as your desktop's.
First find out which resolution your display can take and what its name is. In the following example my laptop display is LVDS-1 and its rated resolution is 1280x800:
Note in the above output the resolution currently used is marked by an asterisk (*). Next you want to test if such resolution works and find the right command to set it up:
In the above command you can change the depth (32 bit) for 24.
Next you want to add such command to the /etc/gdm/Init/Default file before /sbin/initctl ... [1]. The beginning of such file will look like this:
Once you've done this you can logout to see the results. I tested this in a VM environment only but it should work on a standard install ("bare metal").
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution#Setting%20xrandr%20commands%20in%20kdm/gdm%20startup%20scripts
OK for me the answer was in the xorg.conf file. I don't even know exactly what the pertinent lines are, but previously I didn't have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. Because I didn't want to screw anything up I didn't really investigate it. After installing a new video card and switching to the Nvidia binary drivers I used the configuration tool to change the screen resolution. However it was not persistent between logins so I tried the "Write settings to xorg.conf file" button. Next time I logged out the user login menu had the same resolution as all the other users screens. I'm sure this would be a problem if everyone wanted different resolutions but for me that isn't the case.
It can be a isolated problem with the current theme. Which theme you are using now in GDM? Did you check if you have the same problem with others themes?
You also can try to reconfigure your GDM using the commands (You will lose your X11 session doing so) below:
You may need to run the gdmsetup (just works for Ubuntu before 2010):