// Geeky IT Advice
// File #3
// Date: 2004-06-24
// By: junktext (William Paul Liggett)
// Questions?  E-mail: junktext AT junktext.org

/***************************************************************************
   Fedora Core 1 (Yarrow):
   Screwy Display Problems - Resolution Quirks & System Lock-Ups (Halts)
***************************************************************************/

This file comes is broken into two distinct sections.  The first deals with
weird display problems when you attempt to change your video resolution
(such as going from 800x600 pixels to 1024x768 pixels), and the second part
is with regards to a system grinding to a system halt because of a bad video
driver.


// Part I: "I changed my resolution. Now, all I see are squiggly lines."

Alright, this can happen if you accidentally changed your default resolution
of your video display and now every time you log in you see a bunch of weird
squiggly-like lines all over your screen.

However, please note that this 'Part I' portion of this text is only useful
if your computer is NOT locking up (halting).  Please consult 'Part II' below 
if you are having system lock-ups problems.

Also, you do not need to manually restart the machine to fix the squiggly lines
issue.  Simply kill X by hitting the keyboard combination of: 
<CTRL> + <ALT> + <Backspace> (do this twice if need-be).  Educational note: "X"
is the program that makes your graphical environment possible on Linux).  If
things went well, you should be back out into the log in screen.

Now change your session to a 'Failsafe Terminal' and enter you username and
password like normal.  Once you're in a shell console type: 

   $ gnome-display-properties

Then change whatever resolution you want to try to fix the problem and click
'Apply'.  Now exit the 'Failsafe Terminal' with the command:

   $ exit
   
Your ready to try again, just enter your username and password (and make sure
you are trying to log into your normal Desktop Environment, such as GNOME or
KDE).

If all went well, I'll assume you won't need this help document any longer!



// Part II: "My computer simply locks up immediately after booting up."

This issue can be caused by a bad display driver (or the configuration
of that driver).

Well, the following is a method I found works pretty well, albeit my fix starts
off with an odd suggestion.  What you need to do is that right when the machine
is trying to boot up, repeatedly keep hitting <CTRL> + <ALT> + <Backspace>
keyboard combination until you get a message saying something to the effect of:
"X has crashed more than 10 times ...".  This message will tell you it will stop
running X (the program that enables a graphical environment), and will then kick
you back down to a text-mode login.

Make sure you have root or at least 'sudo' (administrator) access before
continuing.  Then input into the shell:

   $ cd /etc/X11
   $ rm XF86Config
   $ reboot
   
Now since you removed the main config file for xfree86 it will need to be
regenerated.  So, on the next boot, you should get an error from xfree86 telling
you about this.  Just go through and try and find a better driver than one you had
before and, if that doesn't work, just use one labeled as 'Generic' since they
usually always work (though you may be limited in your resolution quality).

With a little luck it'll run.  If your monitor and video card supports a 1280x1024
pixel resolution, you'll have a pretty nice viewing experience.  If not, step down
to 1024x768 or 800x600.  Anything lower than that is just, ugh, not good.