Ubuntu 10.04 – Default Login Screen Resolution
Ubuntu allows you to change the desktop resolution once you have logged in; however, what do you do if you need to override the default screen resolution at the login screen before you’ve logged in.
So far, this is the cleanest way that I have found on how to do it. Yup, you’ve got to edit the gdm config file. Lots of older posts talk about generating and modifying the xorg.conf file; however, that is overkill in this case.
From a Ubuntu terminal or command prompt, list the available video modes and the name of the output device (in this case “default”):
$ sudo xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 768, maximum 1180 x 885
default connected 1024×768+0+0 0mm x 0mm
800×600 60.0 56.0 0.0
640×480 60.0 0.0
320×240 0.0
400×300 0.0
512×384 0.0
1024×768 0.0*
. . .
To set a new default for the login screen:
$ sudo gedit /etc/gdm/Init/Default
Look for the lines:
PATH=/usr/bin:$PATH OLD_IFS=$IFS
Immediately following those lines add in:
xrandr --output default --mode 1024x768
Where “default” is the name of the screen output to configure and 1024×768 is the desired gdm resolution.
Reference:
Thanks for this guide, it was useful. However, your solution did not work for me first time as the mode has to be defined before it can be used. My code for a 22″ widescreen looks like this:
PATH=”/usr/bin:$PATH”
OLD_IFS=$IFS
xrandr –newmode “1680x1050_60.00″ 146.25 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089 -hsync +vsync
xrandr –addmode VGA1 “1680x1050_60.00″
xrandr –output VGA1 –mode “1680x1050_60.00″
#if [ -x ‘/usr
Dave
Just what I was looking for. Can’t believe this is so difficult compared to other systems ‘save as default’.
Thanks a lot. In my case I had to change „default” to monitor name displayed by xrandr.
This worked perfect for my Ubuntu 64bit installation! I too found other forum posts that said to edit xorg.conf, but none of these worked for me.
sweet works like charm, on my Xubuntu 10.04 (32bit version)
I have a server that is not connect to a display and if is rebooted withou display the resolution is 800×600 is any way to force to be 1280×1024? i have tried on xorg.conf but its ignored.
thanks
There seems to be something that can get in the way of this working, but I’m not sure what it is. I’ve got a new laptop with a new-ish install of Natty (11.04). At first, my login screen was fine. At some point however I attempted (and failed) to get the ATI Radeon drivers to work. After uninstalling that driver, the login screen became stuck at 1024×768. I’ve added some debug logging to the gdm “Default” script, and it shows that according to xrandr the monitor is configured exactly as it is ones a session starts (that is, it’s got the normal correct resolution). However, from the login screen, even if I arrange for the monitor preference app to run (via the gdm autostart), it won’t let any higher resolution than 1024×768 to be chosen.
Oddly, the OS boot-time splash screen is fine.