Inability to correctly set screen resolution causes the live CD to not load.

Canonical has had a pretty good thing going with its Ubuntu distro of Linux. Despite being a recent convert to the open-source operating system, I’ve found Ubuntu 7.04 a joy to work with and it has brought back the fun to what had become an increasingly frustration life with Windows.

But I have to say that Ubuntu 7.10 is not the pure form of joy I had expected.

Sure, the operating system is loaded with lots of new features including native read/write support for NTFS drive partitions, but for the moment, I’d settle for just getting it load on a PC with a CRT monitor.

It looks as though Ubuntu’s Xorg display server has had a bit of a makeover. Whether it’s the result of the new Compiz Fusion 3D desktop features, I’m not certain, but what I am certain of is the live CD no longer boots up on CRT monitors.

Having tried to load the new Xubuntu distro on PCs with a 19-inch Acer AC915 CRT monitor and a 17-inch Mitsubishi DV1770 CRT unit, the bootloader continually fails to find a correct resolution or frame rate to kick up on. I continually hear the switchover relays inside the monitors flick over until the narky ASCII error screen tells me it’s failed to start the display server and it’s having a rest for a bit.

Things aren’t exactly perfect in LCD land either.

Having installed Xubuntu and Ubuntu 7.10 on multiple LCD monitors, both distros seem to automatically default to a 1680x1050-pixel resolution. While you can adjust the screen resolution back to the correct size when running as a live CD, install the operating system and boot up gives you a different result.

The problem here is that as you try to change the screen resolution, nothing happens.

You have to restart the display server by hitting <CTRL>-<ALT>-<BACKSPACE> before it behaves.

Interestingly, the problem with the live CD load when using CRT monitors appears to be a driver level problem. Having tried two ATI cards – a Radeon X1600 and a Radeon HD 2400 Pro – and failed, I threw in an Nvidia GeForce 8600GT. It came up with a non-standard resolution but at least it did start up.

Now none of these problems occurred with Ubuntu (or Xubuntu 7.04) so it might be a case of “two steps forward, one step back” for my experience with 7.10.