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just brew it!
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Arghh... X zoom feature!

Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:39 am

I fixed this once before, but apparently the recent re-installation of the ATI Catalyst drivers un-did the fix. X-Windows will attempt to cycle through the available video modes when you hit Ctrl-Alt-Plus or Ctrl-Alt-Minus. Problem is, it doesn't work right and (at least on my system) forces the dual displays into "clone" mode at 1024x768, with no way to switch back to the correct mode (that I've been able to find) without logging out! :evil:

I use Ctrl-Alt-<digit> on the numpad as hotkeys to switch between virtual desktops, so it isn't difficult to accidentally hit one of the mode switch key combinations by mistake.

For anyone else who's ever gotten burned by this ill-conceived "feature," you can add the following to your xorg.conf file to disable it:
Section "ServerFlags"
    Option      "DontZoom" "on"
EndSection
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thegleek
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Re: Arghh... X zoom feature!

Mon Feb 13, 2012 11:26 am

Props up for you on this. I've always hated that and wondered wtf the use of it was. Maybe back in the 90's when graphics were sub-par, but nowadays? I see no point.
 
just brew it!
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Re: Arghh... X zoom feature!

Mon Feb 13, 2012 11:30 am

At least Ubuntu disables Ctrl-Alt-Backspace by default. Is leaving that enabled still the default in other distros? (Been a while since I last checked...)
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thegleek
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Re: Arghh... X zoom feature!

Mon Feb 13, 2012 11:35 am

just brew it! wrote:
At least Ubuntu disables Ctrl-Alt-Backspace by default. Is leaving that enabled still the default in other distros? (Been a while since I last checked...)

I have a hard time installing different distros these days. Ubuntu has just been so damn good to be (GUI wise). On my other servers it's all Debian 64bit (no gui).

I have downloaded all the PCBSD images (included vmware and virtualbox images), but have no had any time to play with them yet...
 
The Wanderer
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Re: Arghh... X zoom feature!

Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:54 pm

thegleek wrote:
Props up for you on this. I've always hated that and wondered wtf the use of it was. Maybe back in the 90's when graphics were sub-par, but nowadays? I see no point.

I've found it useful on multiple occasions when some "automatically switch to full-screen" program crashed and the system didn't switch back (naturally, since the program hadn't told it to). Being able to manually cycle through the available resolutions can be pretty nice.

Of course, nowadays I mostly fix that by using xrandr, but there are times when that's not necessarily practical.
Core i7 990X 3.47GHz | 24GB RAM | 512GB SSD (256GB RAID-1) + 8TB (6TB RAID-5) | Radeon HD 6870 | Dell 3008WFP | Obsidian 800D
 
just brew it!
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Re: Arghh... X zoom feature!

Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:16 pm

The Wanderer wrote:
I've found it useful on multiple occasions when some "automatically switch to full-screen" program crashed and the system didn't switch back (naturally, since the program hadn't told it to). Being able to manually cycle through the available resolutions can be pretty nice.

Yeah, if it actually *did* that on my work system it would be OK since I could just cycle back. But it gets the displays stuck in some stupidly low resolution and hoses the dual-head settings.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
 
Flatland_Spider
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Re: Arghh... X zoom feature!

Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:27 am

just brew it! wrote:
At least Ubuntu disables Ctrl-Alt-Backspace by default. Is leaving that enabled still the default in other distros? (Been a while since I last checked...)


I think that's been turned off by default now. I know it's that way in Fedora now. It was actually kind of annoying when they first started doing that. I was used to updating Xorg then using Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart it. Now, I've just gotten into the habit of updating when I have time to reboot.

Xfce is the only DE that I've had problems with, on Fedora (other distros don't setup my displays correctly out of the box). The Gnome and KDE display tools are better about configuring Xorg after the fact then the Xfce Display tool. If it mess with the Xfce Display tool it will clone my displays rather then extend them, and I have to use xrandr to fix it.

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