Dell D630 fc9 can't change screen resolution with system-config-display

[Dave Burns]

D630 has an NVIDIA(R)  Quadro NVS 135M1 and Intel(R)  Graphics Media
Accelerator X3100.

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Dave Burns <tburns at hawaii.edu> wrote:
> I select menu item System/Administration/Display and authenticate. I
> select a resolution from the resolution menu. I click 'OK'.
> A dialog box pops up:
>
> "Display settings changed
> You need to log out and restart the X server for the changes to take effect.
> Coinfiguration was written to /etc/X11/xorg.conf, original
> configuration saved as /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup"
>
> I click okay, open up a terminal window. ls -la shows
> /etc/X11/xorg.conf was modified. /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup does not
> exist.

But the contents of /etc/X11/xorg.conf have not changed. The file is
owned and writeable by root. Nothing shows up in /var/log/messages,
except authorization stuff, which succeeds.

Then I tried changing the hardware tab/monitor type. Sadly, no
pre-setting for my Dell screen, so I choose generic LCD panel
1280x800, since that is what my screen is. Again,
system-config-display acts like it is saving it and backing up old
settings, but nothing changes and no backup written.

I ended up editing the file by hand. Here's the file I have now:


Section "ServerLayout"
      Identifier     "single head configuration"
      Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
      InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# keyboard added by rhpxl
      Identifier  "Keyboard0"
      Driver      "kbd"
      Option      "XkbModel" "pc105"
      Option      "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
      Identifier   "Monitor0"
      ModelName    "LCD Panel 1280x800"
      HorizSync    31.5 - 50.0
      VertRefresh  56.0 - 65.0
      Option      "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
      Identifier  "Videocard0"
      Driver      "nv"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
      Identifier "Screen0"
      Device     "Videocard0"
      Monitor    "Monitor0"
      DefaultDepth     24
      SubSection "Display"
              Viewport   0 0
              Depth     24
              Modes    "1280x800" "1024x768" " 832x624" "800x600"
"720x400" "640x480" "640x400" "640x350"
      EndSubSection
EndSection

system-config-display doesn't show the 1280x800 option. It does let me
switch between those modes, though of course I can't choose 1280x800,
since it is missing from the menu.

I'm confused. Why won't system-config-display let me save my settings?
Why does it override the contents of the config file? Do I need to put
some sort of usemodes or mode entry in the monitor section?

Thanks for any clues.

Dave