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130 Comments
- maz2331, on 05/24/2009, -5/+57Ever try using Regedit to fix something on Windows?
- yfph, on 05/24/2009, -4/+43So simple and easy, even a grandma can do it! Except when she has to tackle drivers for ATI cards.
- paxx80, on 05/24/2009, -5/+35Article contains 0 performance increasing tips or suggestions.. Buried.
- spinalcracker, on 05/24/2009, -3/+29I don't get all the linux bashing about this story. The story is for people already using Linux that have a comfort level with it. Not for people that don't enjoy Linux or can't understand it. Doing this is no different than someone that has been using windows for a while and wants to start tweaking the registry. The average user wouldn't be able to do that. It's not there for your grandma. It's there for power users.
Same thing here. Almost everything works out of the box now on Ubuntu in terms of drivers etc. (More so than windows by far). If you want to tweak the display though you can as root (administrator for you windows people), by doing something as simple as editing a text file in gedit (notepad for you windows people).
Not sure why all this, Linux is crap and hard to use and windows is better talk... this article just wanted to let existing Linux users know that this was available.
And if you want to know the truth. The reason so many Linux users act self-righteous and superior to windows users is because of things like this. I mean really. It's too tough for windows users to open a text file as admin and change a couple settings???? Seriously? You have to flame on that? Maybe you just shouldn't be using a computer at all then. I think now that computers have been around a generation they should be getting more sophisticated, not dumbing down more and more and more... Take the time you spend flaming on digg and use it to try and LEARN something new. It's not that hard, and it's fun. Computers are more than any one OS. You should learn how to use them all.
The above wall of text crits you for 100,000,000,000,000... you die. - SniperZero, on 05/24/2009, -5/+24It is the article title is "........for better performance." Not "........... to make it work"
That stuff is pretty simple to do compared to trying to get windows to the best performance all the tweaks you have to go through. - computershack, on 05/24/2009, -6/+22I'm sorry but apart from a brief explanation of the contents of a x.org conf file, what was the point of that article? We got a "if you have a nVidia card, here's a real long list of some things to do" to "If you have an intel, you might like to try these but we're not sure how well they work " to "if you have another card, we have no clue".
Buried for pointlessness. - Greg2k, on 05/24/2009, -1/+16Every Linux article that has any aspirations in becoming useful to the Linux beginner should explain how to edit files such as xorg.conf . People will find the file through the UI, expect to edit it like a normal text file and save...but that won't work due to lack of permissions. Add to this there is no simple way of 'sudo' opening a file through the UI and you have a ton of users baffled.
Under Ubuntu, open a Terminal window (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal):
gksudo gedit etc/X11/xorg.conf
Hit enter and then type in your root password and edit your file. - JohnFlux, on 05/24/2009, -0/+12b1665r, if you feel bullied by sirhomer's comment then I think you have some sort of persecution complex.
- sirhomer, on 05/24/2009, -1/+12This is why the quality of Linux articles in Digg have been decreasing. If there is anything mildly intelligent posted to the Linux section, there is always a horde of anti-Linux idiots who come out of the ***** woodwork to be like "YOU SEE! THIS IS WHY LINUX SUCKS!". I've seen it happen for some of the most interesting stuff here posted on Digg, the kind of stuff that attracted me to Digg in the first place.
The resulting effect is more people are afraid to Digg intelligent Linux articles, and thus the Linux section gets filled with more and more "Top 9 apps for Ubuntu!" style articles any nothing of any merit never gets digged. It's a viscous cycle. - gsadamb, on 05/24/2009, -0/+10I don't want to be mean, but if people don't know how to do that to begin with, it's probably too damned risky for them to be editing their xorg.conf file to begin with. You must know at least basic shell stuff when doing something that can very easily break your GUI.
- almighty, on 05/24/2009, -4/+13I can say Linux is getting MORE user friendly. It's no where even close to OS X or Windows though. I'm still trying to get my 3rd monitor working under Ubuntu. On Windows It was done nearly automagically.
- mrBitch, on 05/24/2009, -0/+9why do you have to cat the xorg.backup ?
why not just use :
1. to backup : cp -p xorg.conf ~/xorg.backup
2. to restore : cp -p ~/xorg.backup xorg.conf - regx, on 05/24/2009, -1/+10um yeah, that is why it runs the internet and most technically competent nations.
- PsychoBrat, on 05/24/2009, -0/+8Vendor support for hardware certainly helps. Once again, there's the chicken and the egg problem of getting vendors to provide decent linux drivers (or at least docs): they won't provide drivers until there's enough users, and there won't be enough users until they provide good drivers.
Fortunately things have been moving along VERY quickly with the open source ATI drivers since AMD/ATI's recent documentation releases, so there's a problem already half solved. =) - B1665r, on 05/24/2009, -7/+15And then again a coupleof weeks later when all the stuff mysteriously stops working after you spent a week getting it to work in the first place.
- yfph, on 05/24/2009, -0/+8Tell that to people bitching about ATI opensource driver regressions in ubuntuforums.org.
- deadbaby, on 05/24/2009, -1/+9Or you could just use a distro like Ubuntu that does this all for you. Unless you have a fetish for editing config files there's not much reason to ever touch xorg.conf yourself unless you know exactly what you're doing. Don't copy & paste crap from a random site into it. That's as destructive as running regedit on Windows and changing random values because the Internets told you to.
- regx, on 05/24/2009, -1/+8I would like to disagree.
Windows constantly installs the wrong drivers for my audio card and video card.
If I fix it manually Windows breaks it again the next time I reboot so I have to tweak the registry.
So yes, you sometimes do need to tweak the registry to get something as simple as a piece of hardware working.
I much prefer human readable configuration files. - rlbond86, on 05/24/2009, -10/+16Oh God, I can hear the Ubuntu noobs crying on the forums right now on how they needed to reinstall because they messed with xorg.conf.
Here's a real tip: if you screw up xorg.conf and have an nvidia card, "sudo nvidia-xconfig" should fix it for your sorry ass. Sorry ATI people, I don't know if there's a fix for you. - PsychoBrat, on 05/24/2009, -1/+7ntoskrnl isn't particularly user friendly, either.
- ArthurSucks, on 05/24/2009, -0/+6None of the information in the article will crash your system. I've never crashed my system in Linux. To crash Windows however, you just wait a few minutes.
- vincentweber, on 05/24/2009, -2/+8Yeah with Windows it's so much easyer to tweak explorer... oh wait, you can't even do that lol...
Troll your ass of somewhere else loser - edzilla, on 05/24/2009, -0/+6And if you even read the summary of this article, you would have realized that "Most distributions configure your graphics card and display automatically"...
- LastDitchHero, on 05/24/2009, -1/+7JUST LEAVE XORG.CONF ALONE!!!!!!!!!!
no seriously, I hate screwing with it, i had to recently over the botched intel graphics in jaunty. - regx, on 05/24/2009, -1/+7Really? really?
maybe you should do something like this after you install then
sudo mkdir /backup
sudo tar cvfz /backup/etc.bak.tgz /etc
now you don't have to reinstall, you can replace all of your /etc files with
sudo tar xvfz /backup/etc.bak.tgz -C /
or just replace your xorg.conf with
sudo tar xvfz /backup/etc.bak.tgz -C / etc/X11/xorg.conf
Try mucking around with your windows registry without backing it up and see what happens. - cquilliam, on 05/24/2009, -2/+8"As the above poster said, yes but never to tweak my display settings."
Aren't coolbits just registry tweaks? Its just that someone made a little program to edit the registry for you. Just like Linux has programs to edit your xorg.conf file for you as well.
Everyone needs to stop with this OS war. Who the ***** cares. Use whatever the hell you want and shut the hell up about it. - Naidel, on 05/24/2009, -0/+5Either you don't know *****, or you're just lying. Either way -- Buried.
- uskomaton, on 05/24/2009, -0/+5Nothing wrong with Linux user friendliness, it just requires you pay more attention and that is never a bad thing, you might actually learn something about how your computer works.
- abhiroop, on 05/24/2009, -0/+5Post videos on youtube? Umm thats relatively easy on linux, and firefox is MUCH faster (for me at least).
Plus I installed linux for a friend when his windows slowed down after a couple of months of use. Now he is completely enamoured by Ubuntu. He likes the little things, like the ability to add "emblems" to videos he's watched so he knows he's watched them. - vincentweber, on 05/24/2009, -0/+5No he was just trolling...
- abhiroop, on 05/24/2009, -0/+5Metamodes is a great feature. Initially I could not get counter-strike working through wine, but then I configured my metamodes from this:
Option "metamodes" "CRT: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP: nvidia-auto-select +1440+0"
to this
Option "metamodes" "CRT: nvidia-auto-select +0+0, DFP: nvidia-auto-select +1440+0 ; CRT: 1440x900+0+0,NULL"
and now whenever I play cs, my secondary monitor is automatically disabled!
and - alexforcefive, on 05/24/2009, -0/+5Actually ubuntu has a failsafe graphics mode, it works pretty well unless you REALLY destroy your x-server (which I've never done, and I'm an idiot).
- tech10171968, on 05/24/2009, -0/+5"So, bring me a linux which I could use ALL my XP programs with, combined with all the nice features of linux (no viruses, not hardware intensive etc.) and I'm sold, I guess everybody will be sold."
Stop it. Please, just stop. A large part of the reason that so many Windows users have an issue with any Linux-based OS is that they somehow end up thinking that Linux is supposed to be a drop-in replacement for Windows.
Newsflash: it's not.
If you need to run XP apps for your work then just run WIndows. Linux was not created to "run all your XP programs". I'm really not trying to troll, it's just that too many people get turned off by Linux precisely because they are looking for the wrong damned thing in the first place. - javaroast, on 05/24/2009, -0/+5On windows I had to remove ATI's utilities before I could get 3 monitors working. It wasn't very automagic for me. Once I removed ATI's utilities all worked well unless on occasion I connect via RDP and everything is messed up for monitor settings when I log on local to the system. In other words not so automagic. Bottom line every system has some quirks
- regx, on 05/24/2009, -1/+6Don't forget sudo dpkg-reconfigure --phigh xserver-xorg
You can also run this without the --phigh option
or just use envy
sudo apt-get install envyng
sudo envyng -t
I am surprised the article didn't say "before doing any of this backup your xorg.conf file"
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak - redxii, on 05/24/2009, -0/+5Because there are no real games to test with?
- grimfandango, on 05/24/2009, -5/+9why should it be text based? this isn't 1981.
- bumcheekcity, on 05/24/2009, -2/+6jfph clearly has no idea about the technological capability of most grandmas.
- Genma, on 05/24/2009, -7/+11sure what about it
- Pundan, on 05/24/2009, -2/+6I second that. I had a configuration file that had a TwinView setting. After a week or so it suddenly stopped working and I had to "sudo gedit" the file again. I would've understood if it ***** up because I installed some app that changed it or something, but during that time I hadn't installed anything.
- B1665r, on 05/24/2009, -1/+5It does mean it is easy to be ignorant about ignorant about linux techniques though.
It is all easy in retrospect. That does not mean it was easy. - cjnkns, on 05/24/2009, -4/+8Yes -
I bought Vista a while back and the ONLY way I could get it to connect to my network was editing/adding a registry key.
Hmm never had issues like that with my Ubuntu laptop. O'well though each OS has its problems. - warp99, on 05/24/2009, -0/+4"Ow, and make installing codecs on Ubuntu more userfriendly."
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
or use the Synaptic package manager for the typing impaired. If you need additional codecs you can use Windows codecs with gmplayer, just drop them in the /usr/lib/codecs directory.
How much more simple do you need? - LastDitchHero, on 05/24/2009, -0/+4Why is he getting dug down, all the developers of xorg, compiz, and various graphics cards projects always harp on this point.
- javaroast, on 05/24/2009, -0/+4Hey look JQP123 is trolling a linux article again.... never saw that before.
- MrRtd, on 05/24/2009, -0/+4Ok, I'll admit that nowadays I use Linux most of the time comparted to Windows, I'd just like to say how sick I am of hearing how Linux isn't user friendly. I find all the popular distributions such as (K)Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuse, Mint, Debian, etc. etc., quite simple to use. The majority of people will hardly ever need to open up a terminal and type commands. But it can be a very useful time saving tool once you learn some of the commands.
At least with Linux you have the option to customize the operating system exactly the way you want it, but that is almost always not necessary.
I have to admit though, is that Windows has way better help documentation than Linux. - skztr, on 05/24/2009, -1/+5X is stupid. Any sane "Display Server" would separate "running applications under it" from "actually displaying them", which would allow fiddling with x.org to: 1) Not involve shutting down everything, reloading everything, repeating 50 times. 2) Never result in being unable to start up, because sane defaults would kick in whenever you do something unsupported 3) It would be useful in a network environment, the way Screen is useful for the console
No point in fiddling with Xorg.conf: it's still X. Just be glad it works and don't bother doing more. (Yes, I've set up lots of X stuff by hand, yes I've actually gotten it to work, yes I've done it all "on the first try", and X is still poorly designed legacy crap which has no right to exist anymore) - lonnieh, on 05/24/2009, -0/+4Here is a video of Youtube on a Linux based OS. Not only that, it is your ***** video playing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvleOfAeDpE
Firefox is faster, as much as 20% at JavaScript performance. But to you, this means that Linux demonstratably sucks ass? - yevkasem, on 05/24/2009, -0/+4like it was pointed out, this is for better performance. people do similar things on os x and windows. in the latest versions of xorg-server you don't even need an xorg.conf anymore, everything is done automatically. is that friendly enough? even windows makes you install drivers.
- BrownieMix, on 05/24/2009, -0/+3I've been doing this for years.
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