Help! Ubuntu resolution

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I have a laptop with Ubuntu 10.4 on it with a built in monitor (it's a laptop) 1366x768
and it works fine but I woud like to fit more stuff on the screen (I have no problem with small text) is there anyway I can force a higher resolution even thou it is at it's max?

No. The max resolution is determined by the actual physical monitor, not by software.

That is not entirely true; actually: Linux does support setting resolution higher than the screen supports. But it's a stupid idea to do that. You won't actually be able to see the entire desktop if you do that. Just use the multiple desktops feature and keep windows on different virtual screens.

Depending on your driver you have a few options.

If you have an nvidia or ati driver, then you can create an extended virtual desktop. Basically when your mouse touches the side(s) of the screen it will scroll the whole view.

Grabbing you a capture of my nvidia configuration window... see if you have something like this.

First press advanced(where it is unlined basic on mine), and then you will get an additional text window where it says 1920x1200 on mine. You can type whatever magic numbers you want, but its going to be hard on your graphics card if you go too large.



I suggest you try it before saving to the x server configuration file. Just set the numbers back to the native format of your screen to revoke the function.

Have you tried messing around with the system fonts to see if you can get the space you need that way? Most of the widgets will shrink with the font.

Its not an elegant solution, but a panning extended desktop gets annoying real fast.

By-the-way the laptop has a Intel video card and I did not install any drivers self and none seem present.

Well, just to be clear: doing what Fuzzy showed will not allow you to fit more on the screen. It will just make your desktop harder to use.

That resolution is probably for what, a 13 or 14 inch display? There is a trade-off that comes with portability in small laptops.

Correct. It is simply a matter of completeness. I suspect the function is best used to give a tiny bit of vertical display, as if the menu bars are rolling out of the way. If you want to see it taken to an extreme...

<Warning!> This file is nine megabytes. I could go much larger, but even at that its hard to scroll around, its stupid, unusable and pointless.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3735901/pannedscreen.png