So, as Linux is constantly evolving, I've inevitably installed a couple of the newest versions of popular distros on my PC (Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.10), which both ship with GNOME 2.20 by default.
I noticed the problem first in Fedora 8. I've been a Fedora user since Core 5 and have had various Linux distros installed on my PC at different points (Fedora 5, 6, and 7 and Ubuntu 7.04) and most of them were what I would call stable in terms of screen resolution.
So here's the thing: in Fedora 8, it set a default screen resolution of 1024x768, which most distros usually do on my desktop. However, when I upped the resolution to 1280x1024 where I like it, it would mess with my CRT monitor. Basically, the image on my monitor would become off-center, and I'd have to adjust the settings on my monitor to move the image back to the center of the screen.
This was one of the big points that made me dislike Fedora for the first time in 4 versions, because I used to still dual-boot Windows XP and Linux back then, and XP (along with all the older distros) didn't have that screen resolution issue, so I'd have to keep adjusting my display back and forth every time I boot the other OS.
(The other big point I disliked Fedora for, which I resolved since then, was that when you up to 1280x1024 and go into your theme preferences for the first time, it takes the liberty of automatically resetting your Fonts DPI to something well over a hundred, making the fonts look really large and make you wonder if you aren't on 800x600 resolution. I resolved that issue though with changing the DPI back to 96).
Anyway, I had since went with CentOS 5, which is roughly equivalent to Fedora Core 6, and so far this has been the best distro I've ever used (each version of each distro had some pros and cons to it, like a distro that seemed to act how I wanted it to would end up having like, 14pt font size on the XMMS GTK interfaces, or other random pet peeves like that). CentOS 5 plays nice with the screen resolution.
So... Fedora Core 5, 6, and 7, Ubuntu 7.04 (and I imagine older versions too), CentOS 5, Windows 9x, 2000, XP, and Vista, they all let me go up to 1280x1024 and not have to make me adjust my monitor settings. However, Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 (which I discovered later has the same problem) both mess with my monitor when I change the screen resolution.
So: is this a known problem with GNOME 2.20, will the problem hopefully be resolved in future releases of GNOME (i.e. when CentOS 6 comes out I'm gonna have to thoroughly test its stability before I upgrade, because this screen resolution issue is not what I define as "stable"), or is this actually a problem with a new version of the X Server (i.e. does KDE have this problem on newer distros as well?), or is this problem perhaps isolated to only Fedora and Ubuntu?
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Cuvou.com | My personal homepage
Project Fearless | My web blog
I noticed the problem first in Fedora 8. I've been a Fedora user since Core 5 and have had various Linux distros installed on my PC at different points (Fedora 5, 6, and 7 and Ubuntu 7.04) and most of them were what I would call stable in terms of screen resolution.
So here's the thing: in Fedora 8, it set a default screen resolution of 1024x768, which most distros usually do on my desktop. However, when I upped the resolution to 1280x1024 where I like it, it would mess with my CRT monitor. Basically, the image on my monitor would become off-center, and I'd have to adjust the settings on my monitor to move the image back to the center of the screen.
This was one of the big points that made me dislike Fedora for the first time in 4 versions, because I used to still dual-boot Windows XP and Linux back then, and XP (along with all the older distros) didn't have that screen resolution issue, so I'd have to keep adjusting my display back and forth every time I boot the other OS.
(The other big point I disliked Fedora for, which I resolved since then, was that when you up to 1280x1024 and go into your theme preferences for the first time, it takes the liberty of automatically resetting your Fonts DPI to something well over a hundred, making the fonts look really large and make you wonder if you aren't on 800x600 resolution. I resolved that issue though with changing the DPI back to 96).
Anyway, I had since went with CentOS 5, which is roughly equivalent to Fedora Core 6, and so far this has been the best distro I've ever used (each version of each distro had some pros and cons to it, like a distro that seemed to act how I wanted it to would end up having like, 14pt font size on the XMMS GTK interfaces, or other random pet peeves like that). CentOS 5 plays nice with the screen resolution.
So... Fedora Core 5, 6, and 7, Ubuntu 7.04 (and I imagine older versions too), CentOS 5, Windows 9x, 2000, XP, and Vista, they all let me go up to 1280x1024 and not have to make me adjust my monitor settings. However, Fedora 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 (which I discovered later has the same problem) both mess with my monitor when I change the screen resolution.
So: is this a known problem with GNOME 2.20, will the problem hopefully be resolved in future releases of GNOME (i.e. when CentOS 6 comes out I'm gonna have to thoroughly test its stability before I upgrade, because this screen resolution issue is not what I define as "stable"), or is this actually a problem with a new version of the X Server (i.e. does KDE have this problem on newer distros as well?), or is this problem perhaps isolated to only Fedora and Ubuntu?
-------------
Cuvou.com | My personal homepage
Project Fearless | My web blog