# Ubuntu and Graphics Card Driver



## FredT (Nov 16, 2007)

Hi,

A friend of mine has just installed Ubuntu on his laptop but the max resolution he can set is 1024x768.

I assume that to get the full resolution of his screen, he has to install some sort of a graphics card driver?

I was messing around in the graphics drivers area and I set a generic driver for his screen resolution... not sure if this would do the trick, but I haven't found out, considering when I restarted and now whenever I try to boot Ubuntu, it gets stuck on this black screen. It names a few things like these:

*Starting periodic command scheduler crond [OK]
*Checking battery status [OK]
*Loading boot scripts (or something like that) [OK]

Then it just stops.

Not sure what could be causing this problem. And if I get that fixed, what will fix the screen res problem?

Thanks a lot.


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## shuuhen (Sep 4, 2004)

Having the right graphics driver can help at least with speed. The resolution issue can most likely be solved by editing xorg.conf. Do you know what graphics chipset is in the laptop? If you're not exactly sure, use a terminal to run the lspci command (which might not be in the normal user's path - check /usr/sbin/lspci and /sbin/lspci). Then post the output from that command here and we can see if we can determine the best driver for the laptop.

This thread may help with the resolution: http://www.techsupportforum.com/f64/solved-cannot-get-right-resolution-for-lcd-monitor-201818.html
You will need to know what the max resolution of the screen is.


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## Sugi (Mar 6, 2008)

You could try using a back of the xorg.conf file within /etc/X11/ depending on how long the installation of ubunut has been around. The OS creates back ups of the xorg.conf file which controls everything from the keyboard to video drivers to resolutions. If there is more than one xorg.conf. Try copy one to another.

Terminal:
cd /etc/X11/
ls
sudo cp xorg.conf xorg.conf-backup
sudo cp xorg.conf.1 xorg.conf
sudo reboot

("cp xorg.conf xorg.conf-backup" is making a backup of your current messed up xorg.conf file for later uses if needed.
"sudo cp xorg.conf-1 xorg.conf" is replacing your old xorg.conf file with the one that may work. Just note, if xorg.conf.1 didn't work, then try the next number. IE: "xorg.conf.2" or "xorg.conf.3" if provided)

Good Luck,
Sugi


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## FredT (Nov 16, 2007)

Thanks for the responses. He has a Mobile Intel 965 Express Cipset Family.

I will check out that xorg.conf thing too.


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