Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations Mike Lewis on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
How do I change the color depth on Ubuntu?
- Thread starter cpjust
- Start date
Take a look-see:
Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
- Thread starter
- #3
Hmm... So I need to manually edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file? You'd think after all this time that someone would have written a GUI for it just like they have for changing the resolution...
BTW, after I edit that file, how do I get it to re-read that file and make the change? Hopefully I can do it without restarting X Windows.
BTW, after I edit that file, how do I get it to re-read that file and make the change? Hopefully I can do it without restarting X Windows.
You could probably do without the editorial comment on how things *should* be... meantime there is a thread from ubuntu on the matter
D.E.R. Management - IT Project Management Consulting
D.E.R. Management - IT Project Management Consulting
- Thread starter
- #5
It will kill every graphical program.
I'm sceptical that you have to go to runlevel 1 though. Generally in Linux systems, level 1 is for single-user, no-networking mode, minimal system services running, and is used for maintenance (i.e. when you seriously fsck up your whole system and it won't boot even to runlevel 3 normally).
Runlevel 3 is multi-user, text-mode, with networking. generally server machines run at runlevel 3, this is what should be thought of when you hear about running Linux with no GUI at all.
runlevel 5 has X Windows.
So you should be able to drop to runlevel 3 and go back up to 5. Leaving 5 though kills X and every graphical app that depends on X, and shuts down any system services that only run at level 5 (there's not many... things like the backend to the GNOME Network Manager applet are the kinds of services that run in level 5, i.e. things that rely on a graphical system).
Cuvou.com | My personal homepage
I'm sceptical that you have to go to runlevel 1 though. Generally in Linux systems, level 1 is for single-user, no-networking mode, minimal system services running, and is used for maintenance (i.e. when you seriously fsck up your whole system and it won't boot even to runlevel 3 normally).
Runlevel 3 is multi-user, text-mode, with networking. generally server machines run at runlevel 3, this is what should be thought of when you hear about running Linux with no GUI at all.
runlevel 5 has X Windows.
So you should be able to drop to runlevel 3 and go back up to 5. Leaving 5 though kills X and every graphical app that depends on X, and shuts down any system services that only run at level 5 (there's not many... things like the backend to the GNOME Network Manager applet are the kinds of services that run in level 5, i.e. things that rely on a graphical system).
Cuvou.com | My personal homepage
Code:
perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'what is the big freaking deal about shutting down X, putting up the changes, and starting X to see what happens?
D.E.R. Management - IT Project Management Consulting
D.E.R. Management - IT Project Management Consulting
- Thread starter
- #8
Well I have a lot of programs open, and it would be nice if I could change the color depth without having to shutdown and re-open all my programs.thedaver said:
Since you can change the resolution without restarting X I don't see why changing the color depth would be any different though.
Does anyone know how the Screen Resolution GUI app does it? Maybe the same would work for the color depth?
The key combination Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will kill X and restart it, without having to mess with runlevels at all. It's also handy to know if a graphical app starts freezing up your system... Ctrl-Alt-Backspace will kill it and everything else and give ya a new login window to log back in, without having to do a hard reboot like in Windows when a similar situation arises.
If Ctrl-Alt-Backspace doesn't work, then it was probably disabled. Fedora 11 plans to disable this keyboard shortcut by default by adding the "DontZap" option in xorg.conf; if that's there already in Ubuntu, then set it to "false" or delete it.
Alternatively, I'm relatively sure that just doing a simple "System -> Log Out" will kill X and restart it again too, as the effect is the same, and the GDM manager usually doesn't run in the same X session as your desktop (try starting x11vnc when no user is logged on and you'll see what I mean).
Cuvou.com | My personal homepage
If Ctrl-Alt-Backspace doesn't work, then it was probably disabled. Fedora 11 plans to disable this keyboard shortcut by default by adding the "DontZap" option in xorg.conf; if that's there already in Ubuntu, then set it to "false" or delete it.
Alternatively, I'm relatively sure that just doing a simple "System -> Log Out" will kill X and restart it again too, as the effect is the same, and the GDM manager usually doesn't run in the same X session as your desktop (try starting x11vnc when no user is logged on and you'll see what I mean).
Cuvou.com | My personal homepage
Code:
perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'- Thread starter
- #10
Torturednacho
MIS
This is actually a good deal. Thanks I didn't even know about the ctrl _ alt_backspace deal thanks.
- Thread starter
- #12
- Thread starter
- #14
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Question
- Locked
- Question
- Locked
- Question
