display "stretched"

[Kevin J. Cummings]

brian wrote:
> Kevin J. Cummings wrote:
>> I can't say off hand what is causing it, but if you have access to a 
>> "stretched" terminal window, what does xrandr say about the display, 
>> and can you use it to return it to the proper size?
> 
> Thanks. Yeah, when this happens, I can easily open a terminal. Thanks 
> for the tip. I've just saved the output (I'll print it here, fwiw) so i 
> can compare the next time this happens. And I'll go through the man page 
> to figure out how to (try to) reset the dims.

I find that I generally have to issue 2 commands:

1 to change to a different screen size than xrandr *thinks* is being 
displayed

and the 2nd to reset the screen back to the size it *should* have been 
displaying....

> I'd really like to know, though, if there's something in a log that 
> might provide a clue as to why it's happening.

Not that I can tell.  Some programs play with the display size in 
different ways.  Not all of them are fool-proof (or should I say 
error-proof?)

Here is my usual example:

I'm running dosbox in full screen mode (80x24 text mode, I think that's 
720x480), and dosbox often changes the display mode as well.  If 
everything runs OK, when I exit dosbox, it returns the display to what 
it was when I started it.  Sometimes dosbox hangs.  When it does, I have 
to kill it.  Usually it has hosed up X11 in such a way that the only way 
to kill it is to ctrl-alt-F1 to a console window, and where I do a 
"killall -9 dosbox"  WHen I return to the X11 sessionthe screen size is 
wrong, but xrandr tells me its 1280x800.  Baloney.  Its more like 
720x480.  Typing "xrandr -s 800x600" changes the screen size to 800x600, 
then I can type "xrandr -s 1280x800" to return it to its proper display 
size.

I've never found any log files that tell me what went wrong.  Not the 
Xorg.log, not /var/log/messages, nothing I can find....

> This is the current output (the screen is fine). I doubt there's 
> anything here to suggest what the problem might be.
> 
> $ xrandr
> Screen 0: minimum 320 x 240, current 1152 x 864, maximum 1152 x 864
> default connected 1152x864+0+0 0mm x 0mm
>    1152x864       60.0*
>    1024x768       70.0     60.0
>    1024x576       60.0
>    960x600        60.0
>    960x540        60.0
>    800x600        60.0     56.0
>    768x576        60.0
>    720x576        60.0
>    856x480        60.0
>    800x480        60.0
>    720x480        61.0
>    640x480        67.0     60.0
>    720x400        70.0
>    512x384        60.0
>    400x300        60.0
>    320x240        61.0

yeah, but I'll bet that something else has changed it behind Xorg's back....

Issuing 2 "xrandr -s" commands (like I do) should restore it for you.

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)