Netbooks are light and have long battery life but suffer from very low
resolution which makes using some applications cumbersome. There is a simple
hack using xrandr which gets you a higher resolution.
First determine which resolution you want. I wanted 1280x750 which is
1.25x1.25 the standard netbook resolution of 1024x600. Then find your
monitor's refresh rate and monitor names using the following command:
$xrandr
which gives something like this:
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1024 x 600, maximum 4096 x 4096
LVDS1 connected 1024x600+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 220mm
x 129mm
1024x600 60.0*+ 65.0
800x600 60.3 56.2
640x480 59.9
VGA1 disconnected 1024x600+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm
x 0mm
1280x750 59.8
1024x600_60 59.9*
We found out the monitor refresh rate is 60 and its name is LVDS1 while the
VGA connection is called VGA1.
Now get resolution parameters using cvt or gtf, e.g. if your refresh rate is
60 and your desired resolution is 1280x750 use this:
$cvt 1280 750 60
or
$gtf 1280 750 60
The output should look like this:
# 1280x720 59.86 Hz (CVT 0.92M9) hsync: 44.77 kHz; pclk: 74.50 MHz
Modeline "1280x720_60.00" 74.50 1280 1344 1472 1664 720 723 728 748
-hsync +vsync
or like this:
# 1280x720 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 44.76 kHz; pclk: 74.48 MHz
Modeline "1280x720_60.00" 74.48 1280 1336 1472 1664 720 721 724 746
-HSync +Vsync
This can help us create a new resolution using the following command:
xrandr --newmode "1280x750" 77.50 1280 1344 1472 1664 750 753 763 779
-hsync +vsync
Now we add this mode to VGA connection which is disconnected.
xrandr --addmode VGA1 1280x750
And use this mode with the netbook monitor:
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1280x750 --output LVDS1 --fb 1280x750 --scale
1.25x1.25
This hack is great, but video tearing is evident when watching videos. Is
there any way to remove it?
P.S. the simpler command
xrandr --output LVDS1 --scale 1.25x1,25
also works on Trisquel 5.0 or older. On newer versions the mouse cannot be
moved beyond a certain border.
