In an earlier post, Konstipated Koala, I documented a screen resolution bug and provided links that would enable affected users to find a work-around. Armed with that knowledge I attempted to increase my resolution to 1280×800. Strangely, I could not achieve a resolution greater than 1280×768. I knew that my 19 inch monitor could handle it. There is a sticker on the monitor claiming a capability of up to 1440×900!

Doh! Finally I realized that my graphis card might be the limiting factor. So how can you determine your card’s possible resolutions? First install the hwinfo package from the repositories. Bring up a terminal and issue..

sudo apt-get install hwinfo

Or, if you prefer, use the Synaptic Package Manager.

Then from a terminal issue..

sudo hwinfo –framebuffer

Your graphics card will be identified and you’ll see a listing of all possible resolutions. In my case, there was no vertical resolution greater than 768. Oh well!