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I have Ubuntu 9.04 installed in VMWare 6.52. When I login to the machine, the login screen has a strange resolution problem.

Here's an example screen shot of the issue:

(ugh, cant get image shack link to work here.. please follow the link to see the screen shot:

Screen shot

The white line that I drew in there indicates the invisible mouse border. In other words, I can't move my mouse all the way across the entire black area. It stops at where I drew in the white border. The white border does not actually exist on the login screen.

After I log in, the resolution of the desktop appears fine.

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  • Interesting problem, I hope you get an answer. Aug 7, 2009 at 21:35

4 Answers 4

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General hint for X: Ctrl-Alt-numpadplus and ctrl-alt-numpadminus will cycle forward and back through the resolutions your X server is configured for.

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  • I think the login screen is displayed before X is even started. Aug 8, 2009 at 16:05
  • The login screen is run in a different X server, true, but it's still under X, and the keycombos I listed will still work.
    – pjz
    Aug 8, 2009 at 16:30
  • Pressing the "plus" key combo resized the window to match the 'truncated' resolution. Further pressing of either the plus or minus had no effect. After login, pressing each combo did nothing.
    – Ian
    Aug 9, 2009 at 4:20
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The login screen is run by a program called GDM. GDM uses the first resolution listed in your Xorg.conf modeline. In /etc/X11/xorg.conf what does your 'Screen' section have for resolutions?

Mine, for instance has this:

Section "Screen"
       Identifier "Default Screen"
    Device "VMWare SVGA"
    Monitor "vmware"

    Subsection "Display"
      Depth       4
      Modes       "640x480"
      ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubSection

    SubSection "Display"
      Depth       8
      Modes       "1280x1024"
      ViewPort     0 0
    EndSubSection

... and so on. It lists 1280x1024 at different color depths, as that is the resolution I run. The default 640x480 is what my login/GDM display uses. Try checking that out, and see if moving/changing that around fixes it.

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Ok, questions:

1 - Do you have vmware tools installed?

2 - Has it always been like this, or did a recent upgrade do it?

3 - How were the graphics during install?

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  • 1. Yes - 2. It did this soon after installation, after a reboot. - 3. Graphics were fine during installation. And the login screen was fine for a few boot cycles. Then it just happened.
    – Ian
    Aug 9, 2009 at 4:21
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You may need to load into GRUB console and manually edit your config files, adding required resolution.

Various help articles about modif xorg.conf file from console.

This might help. Same priniciple even though Virtual PC

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  • I am able to login. I assume I can edit these config files without needing to log in to the GRUB console?
    – Ian
    Aug 10, 2009 at 15:43
  • 1
    yes you can edit these files without needing to go via GRUB. Aug 11, 2009 at 13:42
  • not sure if this link is helpful? wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution Aug 11, 2009 at 13:50

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