Fedora Linux

Fine-Tuning Your Display Configuration

Fedora’s Anaconda installer detects and configures most display hardware optimally. However, there are some situations where it’s necessary to override the default configuration to set up a desired display resolution and color depth.

How Do I Do That?

Fedora’s display configuration program is called system-config-display.

If you have a working graphical display, you can start this program by selecting System→Administration→Display from the panel menus (System Settings→Display in KDE). You’ll need to enter the root password when prompted.

If you don’t have a working graphical display, or you’ve booted into character mode (see Lab 4.5, “Using Runlevels”), you can start this program from the command line:

$ system-config-display
You are attempting to run "system-config-display" which requires administrative
privileges, but more information is needed in order to do so.
Password for root: 
                  secret
               

The graphical display will be started in a very basic mode so that the graphical configuration dialog can be displayed.

Tip

system-config-display uses the existing display configuration as a starting point. If the existing configuration does not work at all, you may need to delete it to force system-config-display to start from scratch:

# rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Whether started from the menu or the command line, the window shown in Figure 2-15 will be displayed.

Figure 2-15. system-config-display window

This dialog has three tabs:

Settings

Selects the default resolution ...