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I realize that this question is asked quite a bit, so bear with me. How do
I turn off the virtual desktop? Since Slackware's video setup makes things
out to be less than they are I decided to run xf86config so I could watch
movies, scroll rapidily down a web page, and so on without everything
being jerky. I'd never done this before, so on the first time through I
screwed up. Then I went back though again, screwed up again. However I did
know to avoid answering yes to the bit that asks me if I wanted a virtual
desktop.

I hate virtual desktops.

Anyway, on my third time through I accidentally enabled the virtual
desktop. "Noooo!" I'd already been through the setup three times, why not
another? I fired up xf86config again and was prepared to answer that no, I
did not want a virtual desktop. It never asked. So I went through again.
Still no asking about virtual desktops.

"Time to read the manual." After doing so I opened up XF86config, found
the screen section, and was a bit dismayed to find that the line I needed
to edit was not there. (I don't remember what it is at the moment, but I'm
going to guess you guys know what I'm talking about. If not, I'll look it
up again.) Here's it is:

I've looked at a lot of material to try and fix this myself, but most
people just suggest to run XF86config again, or use some KDE wizard. Like
I've said before XF86config doesn't give the option anymore, and I use
fluxbox. I have tried increasing the screen resolution with
crtl+alt+num+/-, and the virtual desktop disappears at the highest
resolution, which is far to tiny for me. Any help is appreciated, as my
eyesight is pretty good now and I'd like to keep it like that.

(By the way my distro is Slack 9.1, but this is a disto neutral question I
believe. If I've posted in the wrong place I would appreciate guidance to
the correct place to do so.)

Brian Troutwine <goofy_headed_punk@msn.com> writes:


> I've looked at a lot of material to try and fix this myself, but most
> people just suggest to run XF86config again, or use some KDE wizard. Like
> I've said before XF86config doesn't give the option anymore, and I use
> fluxbox. I have tried increasing the screen resolution with
> crtl+alt+num+/-, and the virtual desktop disappears at the highest
> resolution, which is far to tiny for me. Any help is appreciated, as my
> eyesight is pretty good now and I'd like to keep it like that.
>
> (By the way my distro is Slack 9.1, but this is a disto neutral question I
> believe. If I've posted in the wrong place I would appreciate guidance to
> the correct place to do so.)

Hmmmm. I run Slack--Current and if hotplugging is selected, for my machine
anyway, X is automagically configured.

I might suggest that you try installing --current.

Or with 9.1 I believe the question you may be missing is "Do you want a
DeskTop larger than your screen?'' or something very similar. It pops up
when you change the video modes if I remember correctly.

--
SlackRat
Please address all replies to the list

Brian Troutwine <goofy_headed_punk@msn.com> wrote:
>"Time to read the manual." After doing so I opened up XF86config, found

I'd say that is the right way to go. Edit XF86Config yourself.

>the screen section, and was a bit dismayed to find that the line I needed
>to edit was not there. (I don't remember what it is at the moment, but I'm
>going to guess you guys know what I'm talking about. If not, I'll look it
>up again.) Here's it is:
>
>[code]
># ************************************************** ******************** #
>Screen sections
># ************************************************** ********************
>
># Any number of screen sections may be present. Each describes # the
>configuration of a single screen. A single specific screen section # may
>be specified from the X server command line with the "-screen" # option.
>Section "Screen"
> Identifier "Screen 1"
> Device "** SiS (generic) [sis]" Monitor
> "My Monitor"
> DefaultDepth 24
>
> Subsection "Display"
> Depth 8
> Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" ViewPort
> 0 0

That should look like this

Subsection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
ViewPort 0 0

....

>fluxbox. I have tried increasing the screen resolution with
>crtl+alt+num+/-, and the virtual desktop disappears at the highest
>resolution, which is far to tiny for me. Any help is appreciated, as my
>eyesight is pretty good now and I'd like to keep it like that.

Delete, above, the screen resolutions that you do not want. The
highest one *is* going to be the virtual screen size. So if you
have "1600x1200" in there and actually use "800x600", your
virtual screen will be twice as high and twice as wide as what
you can see at one time on the physical screen.

If you like 1024x768, remove all of the "1280x1024" entries. If
you like "800x600", remove the "1024x768" entries too.

Most monitors today will handle "1280x1024", and you might want
to actually use that instead of 1024x1024 or 800x600. But doing
so probably means learning more than you want to know about
configuring fonts on everything you use!

>(By the way my distro is Slack 9.1, but this is a disto neutral question I
>believe. If I've posted in the wrong place I would appreciate guidance to
>the correct place to do so.)

--
FloydL. Davidson <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd@barrow.com

Thanks for the suggestions. Deleting the resolutions I was not going to
use worked nicely.

Now to increase my X font sizes...

On 2004-06-07, Brian Troutwine <goofy_headed_punk@msn.com> wrote:

> I hate virtual desktops.

Xfree86 will automagically try to give you a virtual desktop the size of
your largest mode. To avoid this behavior just have the Modes line read
"1024x768" or whatever resolution you want.