[ale] desktop size

[Eric Z. Ayers]

marnuke writes:
 > Hi,
 > I was wondering how I'd go about changing the configuration so that my 
 > desktop would fit in nicely on the screen.  I have a paradise pipeline pci 
 > video card and a compaq svga color monitor. It is hard to navigate
 > specially when the window extend way beyond the  screen size.  I have come
 > across linux documents addressing that problem but still it is unclear and
 > new to me.  I appreciate all the help. Thank you.
 > 
 > Reimbert
 > 
 > 
 > 
 > This sounds like the funny little bug in X11.   If you say you have 8 megs
 > of ram and you set your video card for 800*600, X11 will use up all the
 > ram on your video card.  What you need up is a Huge desktop and a small
 > viewing area.  What you do is either decreass the amount of ram you tell
 > it to use or increase your screen size or both.


1) try Ctrl-Alt kbd + a few times and see if your desktop gets 'smaller'

If you see it cycle through modes, what is happeing is that your X
server is supporting multiple screen sizes.  You need to configure it
just for the screen size  you want.

2) Another thing you can do is edit /etc/X11/XF86Config directly.  You might
see lines in the 'Screen' section you are using like  Viewport 1600 1200

change it to Viewport 0 0 and this will change your desktop to be the
same size as the largest screen resolution you are using (the last
mode in the ModeLine configuration line)

-Eric.