I built a computer for my cousin a year ago and dual booted it with XP.
As they are not gamers I advised them to use Ubuntu for all there internet usage and only drop into windows if they find they cannot do something.
All has been relatively well considering they are total n00bs with computers.
Then I get an email saying
Hi Paul we have another problem the screen has gone big and we cannot view the whole page,tried to look at page set up and that's fine.
So I figure they must've somehow press left ctrl & alt and keypad -
Easy Peasy.. I send them an email telling them how to get out of that but
epic fail
So off I trundled last night to the other side of town (bloody football match on too) and sure enough.. ITS BIG !!
(They are on Gutsy Gibbon, updated from Feisty Fawn)
I go into screen res and only 640 x 480 is available ?
I check restricted drivers and its disabled ? So I re-enable it...reboot.. splash screen is correct res (where the orange bar goes across) but its still on 640.
So I go back into screen res and STILL only 640 x 480 available ? (Although compiz now works again)
WTF
Ok.. So now its time to fingers dirty
Alt F2 Sudo Kate
Lets looky at Xorg.conf
Theres 3 files
xorg.conf
xorg.conf1
xorg.conf2
So I look at xorg.conf and sure enough only 640 is in there.. look at next file and they are all there.
Rename
REboot
Back into screen res
Job sorted..except for the pigs ear they made manually trying to shrink everything on the gui.
So I ponder how xorg got overwritten and ask them what happened.
"Did a software update come in and it borked afterwards"
"Nope, Our daughter just switched it on and it was all big"
Then I ask a real numpty question and ask how they switch it on....
"We turn the computer on and then switch the monitor on same as we've always done".
"AHA.." Sounds your daughter was slightly slower at turning the monitor on and the computer figured there wasn't one attached and selected a fail safe resolution.
I'm amazed it overwrote xorg.conf though as this has happened to me to a certain degree at times. I have a KVM and sometimes when I boot this machine I change over to other machine whilst its booting.
When I switch over to this one the res has dropped from 1680 x 1050 to 1280 x 1024
Still perfectly usable but yuk
Never has it overwrote xorg.conf
So here we are at the end.
I guess this thread can serve as a warning and a question too.
Why did that happen (xorg.conf being overwritten) And how can it prevented from reoccurring? ( Apart from getting them to switch the monitor on before booting which they are now doing anyway)
As they are not gamers I advised them to use Ubuntu for all there internet usage and only drop into windows if they find they cannot do something.
All has been relatively well considering they are total n00bs with computers.
Then I get an email saying
Hi Paul we have another problem the screen has gone big and we cannot view the whole page,tried to look at page set up and that's fine.
So I figure they must've somehow press left ctrl & alt and keypad -
Easy Peasy.. I send them an email telling them how to get out of that but
epic fail
So off I trundled last night to the other side of town (bloody football match on too) and sure enough.. ITS BIG !!
(They are on Gutsy Gibbon, updated from Feisty Fawn)
I go into screen res and only 640 x 480 is available ?
I check restricted drivers and its disabled ? So I re-enable it...reboot.. splash screen is correct res (where the orange bar goes across) but its still on 640.
So I go back into screen res and STILL only 640 x 480 available ? (Although compiz now works again)
WTF
Ok.. So now its time to fingers dirty
Alt F2 Sudo Kate
Lets looky at Xorg.conf
Theres 3 files
xorg.conf
xorg.conf1
xorg.conf2
So I look at xorg.conf and sure enough only 640 is in there.. look at next file and they are all there.
Rename
REboot
Back into screen res
Job sorted..except for the pigs ear they made manually trying to shrink everything on the gui.
So I ponder how xorg got overwritten and ask them what happened.
"Did a software update come in and it borked afterwards"
"Nope, Our daughter just switched it on and it was all big"
Then I ask a real numpty question and ask how they switch it on....
"We turn the computer on and then switch the monitor on same as we've always done".
"AHA.." Sounds your daughter was slightly slower at turning the monitor on and the computer figured there wasn't one attached and selected a fail safe resolution.
I'm amazed it overwrote xorg.conf though as this has happened to me to a certain degree at times. I have a KVM and sometimes when I boot this machine I change over to other machine whilst its booting.
When I switch over to this one the res has dropped from 1680 x 1050 to 1280 x 1024
Still perfectly usable but yuk
Never has it overwrote xorg.conf
So here we are at the end.
I guess this thread can serve as a warning and a question too.
Why did that happen (xorg.conf being overwritten) And how can it prevented from reoccurring? ( Apart from getting them to switch the monitor on before booting which they are now doing anyway)
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