Chapter 16. The Display
Secrets in This Chapter
The X Windows System
Configuring the Ubuntu Display
Using 3-D Cards
The video display is one of those areas in Ubuntu where things are still evolving. If you're fortunate, Ubuntu detected your monitor and video card setup during the installation process without any problems, and you can use your desktop without issue. However, this isn't always the case. If you have any exotic video hardware, such as dual monitors or an advanced 3-D video card, or you want to add a new video card or monitor after you've already installed Ubuntu, Ubuntu will often have trouble detecting the video setup. This chapter helps guide you through the Ubuntu video system. It starts out by walking through the X Windows system, the underlying video system Ubuntu uses to control the video environment on your workstation. After that we'll discuss how to modify your video setup by using the utilities Ubuntu provides by default, plus some utilities you can add from the repositories. Finally, the chapter walks through the sticky topic of using advanced 3-D video cards in your Ubuntu workstation.
The X Windows System
Before we dive into the details of working with the video display in Ubuntu, it helps to get a little background on how Linux generally handles video. If you run the Ubuntu server, or if you run your Ubuntu workstation in text mode, there's not much involved for Ubuntu to interact with the video card and monitor. By default Ubuntu can use just about any video ...
Get Ubuntu® Linux® Secrets now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
