How change display resolution settings using xrandr

For those who see “cannot find output VGA1”: have a look at YOUR output of the first command in this article.
The line “xy connected to…” tells you what to write instead of VGA1, on my system it reads “default”.

(nonetheless not working here because of “Configure crtc 0 failed”)

You can copy and paste xrandr command lines into user’s ~/.xprofile file, then they’re executed when you log in.

hykloud, thanks a lot!
I have edited the hidden .profile file and it worked.

Excellent…

u r a f…ing genius !

Thanks.

Gary,
do this:
[email protected]:~# xrandr
To see what xrandr sees. You’ll get some output like this:

[email protected]:~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 4096 x 4096
DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VGA-1 connected 1280×1024+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 356mm x 266mm
1920×1440 60.0
1856×1392 60.0
1792×1344 65.0 60.0
1920×1200 74.9 59.9
1600×1200 75.0 70.0 65.0 60.0
1680×1050 84.9 74.9 60.0
1400×1050 85.0 74.9 60.0
1280×1024 85.0* 75.0 60.0
1440×900 84.8 75.0 59.9
1280×960 85.0 60.0
1360×768 60.0
1280×800 84.9 74.9 59.8
1152×864 75.0
1280×768 84.8 74.9 59.9
1024×768 85.0 75.1 75.0 70.1 60.0 43.5
832×624 74.6
800×600 85.1 72.2 75.0 60.3 56.2
848×480 60.0
640×480 85.0 75.0 72.8 72.8 66.7 60.0 59.9
720×400 85.0 87.8 70.1
640×400 85.1
640×350 85.1
TV-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Here my output VGA-1 is “connected”. The “*” asterisk denotes the active resolution and refresh rate.

Then use “cvt” (or “gft”)

[email protected]:~# cvt 1024 768 60

to get a modeline for 1024×768 with 60hz refresh rate

cvt will spit out something like this:

# 1024×768 59.92 Hz (CVT 0.79M3) hsync: 47.82 kHz; pclk: 63.50 MHz
Modeline “1024x768_60.00” 63.50 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 798 -hsync +vsync

I’m using openbox wm with no display manager right now so I just put this in a .scripts folder in my ~/ to be called with .config/openbox/autostart.sh

Replace my lines with YOUR modes or you might blow up your screen!!!

—shell script—

#!/bin/bash
# screenres
#
xrandr –newmode “1280x1024_85.00” 159.50 1280 1376 1512 1744 1024 1027 1034 1078 -hsync +vsync &
xrandr –addmode VGA-1 1280x1024_85 &
xrandr –output VGA-1 –mode 1280×1024 –rate 85

Name the file something like screenres.sh .

Then:

[email protected]:~# chmod +x screenres.sh

Then:

[email protected]:~# ./screenres.sh

My apologies for typos in my earlier initial comment.

The following has been corrected:

I have Linux Mint 14 mate installed on a fit=PC2i SBC which has a DVI display interface to an acer 22* monitor with 1600×1299)_60.00 resolution,
I have Linux Mint 14 mate installed on a fit=PC2i SBC which has a DVI display interface to an acer 22* monitor with 1600×1200_60.00 resolution,

I was unable to get xrandr –addmode VGA1 1600x1200_60.00 to work.

I entered “xrandr -q” command and it reported DVI-0 and not LPT1 as my Display Device,
After entering “xrandr –addmode DVI-0 1600x1200_60.00″ the command was accepted.

The next command ”xrandr –output DVI-0 –mode 1600x1200_60.00″ was also accepted and the display resolution changed.

Thanks.

And how about other resolutions? I just got done with the install and my Dell 2405 monitor with 1920×1200 res is aparently stuck at 1600×1200 max. Is there posibly an algorithm for calculating the modeline for other vslues of h & v resolution? A generic one perhaps.

(Rant mode to on)
Linux’s adaptability to oder hardware has long been a real strength in the marketplace of ideas. What is happening? There used to be a perfectly good auto-config for monitors that worked fine, why was it not used?

Hopefully there is a better way, this looks like a shortcut team was on duty when this one was designed. Modelines??? in 2013??? I can & have implemented fixes like this, but I sould like to see this done right.

(Rant mode off)

At any rate we need a fix, someone please post some sort of a fix here if available.

Thanks in advance.
Jim Rivera

Uranus,

I have been messing around with trying to get my headless machine to display a particular resolution upon logon via VNC. It would only show 1024×768. My desire was to view at 1680×1050. Using your description as a template I was able to gain success. Here is what I did:

I created a file called .xprofile in my home directory (/home/myusername/.xprofile or ~/.xprofile).

I edited the file with the following text:

#!/bin/bash
# screenres
#

xrandr –newmode “1680x1050_60.00” 146.25 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089 -hsync +vsync &
xrandr –addmode VGA-0 1680x1050_60.00 &
xrandr –output VGA-0 –mode 1680x1050_60.00

I saved the file and made it executable and rebooted.

After the reboot, I logged on a my resolution was as I desired.

Things I was missing in my .zprofile were: the 1st three lines and the ampersand (&) after the 4th and 5th lins.

Thanks for the final push to success.

Hi there, thanks for this page, but Im rather confused. Correct me if im wrong. So the existing resulution is 1024×768 and the writer is showing how to add new modes, ie other resolutions. But bothfor “addmode” and “output”, the same 1024×768 figure is typed in. Is this right? Or am I to change the numbers to my preferred resolution figures in one of those places?

Thanks again.

#xrandr –output VGA1 –mode 800×480
#warning: output VGA1 not found; ignoring

How to find VGA1, DVI-0 or something i have?
(Notebook with Ubuntu 11.04)

I am also getting the “xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default” error message. I’m running a Lenovo T-61 laptop with Nvidia graphics.

It was working fine until I installed a system core security update.

Thank you ¡¡ Solved in Linux Mint 15 ‘Olivia’, but using mdm inside gdm as Display Manager. So, the gedit file instruccion must changed to mdm.

Regads

Hey,

I was so annoyed about typing and remembering the commands of xrandr that I wrote a little script to simplify this a lot.

Maybe it helps someone else to save time 😉

https://github.com/coding-green/simplify-screen-modes

use “default” instead of “VGA1”

you output name is default

Before using the script “addmode” type in
$ xrandr
then it will list all of the available connections. So instead of writing VGA1, you would put your appropriate output display.

Mine is showing LVDS1 as the laptop display, with VGA1 as the external monitor.