RHEL5 display resolution change not sticking

[Bob M]

I don't know if this is a purely RHEL5 issue, or influenced by running it as a VM.

MacBook Pro, OS X resolution currently set to its maximum: 1440x900.

In the VM, I change the resolution from 1920x1200, to 1024x768 (I've tried other settings as well), then click 'OK'. I'm told:

"Display settings changed. You need to log out and restart the X server for the changes to take effect. Configuration was written to /etc/X11/xorg.conf [...]".

I restarted the VM, but changes don't stick.

If I reopen Display Settings after having attempted to make a change, the resolution remains at 1920x1200. It's as if the change isn't being written properly. If I change colors from Millions to Thousands, that sticks immediately (meaning if I reopen Display Settings, the choice I've changed to is what I changed it to).

Following show the permissions (I'm logged in as root, and have write privs to that file); a diff; and the video sections of xorg.conf. Most of my VM settings are default. I did increase video memory to 32MB.

Bob

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 764 May 7 08:48 xorg.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 775 May 7 08:43 xorg.conf.backup

# diff /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup
28c28
< Modes "1920x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1200" "1600x1024" "1440x900" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "800x600" "640x480" "640x480"
---
Modes "1920x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1200" "1600x1024" "1440x900" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1024x768" "1024x768" "800x600" "800x600" "640x480" "640x480"

-----------

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1920x1200" "1680x1050" "1600x1200" "1600x1024" "1440x900" "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1280x800" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "800x600" "640x480" "640x480"
EndSubSection

 

[jgadbaw]

Use an editor and set your depth to 16 and see if things work as you want.

 

[Ed Sutton]

Reproduced problem

I know it is not helpful, but I have the exact same problem. I had a tough time even installing Parallels tools. I had to copy to my desktop and change a bunch of permissions. This is one area that VMware Fusion does better - installing VM Tools is easy in comparison to enable use of native resolution. I am going to get with a tech support engineer and see if there is a solution. I may switch to Parallels. I'll post the outcome here.

-Ed

 

[Ed Sutton]

Solved - Configure guest Video memory greater than 2GB default

1 - With VM shutdown, select Configure from the Virtual Machine list
2 - Select Video under Hardware and increase Video memory. I changed mine to 16MB although less may be sufficient

Once I did this I could operate at MacBook Pro native 1440 x 900 as well as external native 1920 x 1080 both *before* and after installing Parallel Tools.

How to Install Parallel Tools Under Red Hat

1- With VM running, select Install Parallel Tools from the Virual Machine (unmount any mounted CD's first)
2 - Make a "ParallelTools" folder on your desktop and copy everything in the mounter CD to it
3 - You need to change owner after copying as root or using sudo. Do a chown -R johnDoe ParallelsTools
4 - No go into the copy of the ParallelTools folder and do "chmod +x *" of the files in the root and the installer subfolder
5 - Now you should be able to run the install with out any permission issues

Now if I could only locate a good deal on a competitive upgrade from VMware Fusion 2.0 I might switch.

-Ed