[PC-BSD Support] Resetting display resolution - PC-BSD 8.0

[Johann Hugo]

On Sunday 07 March 2010, usmbish at aol.com wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
>
> > From: USM Bish <usmbish at aol.com>
> > To: support at lists.pcbsd.org <support at lists.pcbsd.org>
> > Sent: Sat, Mar 6, 2010 6:28 pm
> > Subject: Re: [PC-BSD Support] Resetting display resolution - PC-BSD 8.0
>
> [ some snipped ]
>
> >> This is a known issue:
> >>
> >> <http://trac.pcbsd.org/ticket/243>
> >>
> >> The solution for  now is to boot with option  "7" and check
> >> the upper of the two boxes in the "advanced" tab. Even with
> >> the Trac issue closed, the bug isn't solved, yet.
> >>
> >> Markus
> >
> > Dear Markus and Kris,
> >
> > Thanks for  the lead. I  will try  the Option "7",  but then
> > this can at best be an interim solution. I suppose, step one
> > would be  to go the old  classical style, and boot  into the
> > command prompt  on console  (viz. remove  kdm). Then  set up
> > things  by hand  before firing  X manually  with "startkde"/
> > "startx". May work ...
>
> Looks silly, replying to my own post, but this is just to give
> a completion report.
>
> What surprises  me is the  fact the  Xorg under Ubuntu  in the
> same box  gives me  an auto-detected option  which works  at a
> higher resolution/  depth combination, whereas that  of PC-BSD
> goes on to default 1024x768 with 16 bit depth.
>
> I did  try setting it to  1440x900 at 24 bit  colour depth. It
> ran for that session, but reset  on reboot. Then I did a whole
> lot of trial and error to  find that 1440x900 at 16 bit colour
> depth was retaining.  The rest was a matter of  going down the
> resolution ladder  to get an  optimal combo of 24  bit colour.
> That, I got at 1280x960,  and things are definitely better now
> . This is  holding on across reboots, and I  did not have to
> take the manual route.
>
> So basically,  it is a matter  of Option 7 boot,  and then get
> the appropriate resolution which holds across a reboot.
>
> Bish

Something else you can try:

select single mode from the boot menu
login as root
mount -a
Xorg -configure
make copy of your original xorg.conf
copy the generated xorg.conf to /etc/xorg.conf
reboot

If that xorg.conf works then you can compare the to xorg.conf files to find 
out what 's different.

Johann