Change screen resolution in Fedora 16

Question

I have a Dell Inspiron 1750 installed with Fedora 16. I only have three resolutions to pick from: 1600 x 900, 1024 x 768, and 800 x 600. None of these are satisfactory for me.

xrandr gives the following output:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1600 x 900, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS1 connected 1600x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 382mm x 214mm 
   1600x900 60.3*+
   1024x768 60.0
   800x600 60.3 56.2
   640x480 59.9
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

How can I get more resolutions to pick from?

Answer 1

You can use xrandr to set specific resolutions.

1. First generate a modeline. This is very easy using cvt. For example, to create a mode for 1920x1080 you would run

   cvt 1920 1080 60 -r
   

   The 60 corresponds to a 60Hz refresh rate (a common refresh rate for modern monitors). The -r means to enable reduced blanking, which is useful for LCD monitors.

2. Add the new mode to your mode list using xrandr. Copy the output of cvt (except the word "Modeline") and paste it after xrandr --newmode

   xrandr --newmode "1920x1080R"  138.50  1920 1968 2000 2080  1080 1083 1088 1111 +hsync -vsync
   

3. Add the new mode to the proper connector. If the monitor is connected to the first HDMI port on your video card, the command would be

   xrandr --addmode HDMI1 1920x1080R
   

   A list of valid connector names is given in the output of running xrandr with no arguments.

4. Enable the new mode. Sometimes the new mode is automatically enabled after step three. If not, you can enable it by opening "Settings" and clicking on "Displays", or through xrandr

   xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1920x1080R