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Date:      Mon, 2 Dec 1996 09:46:50 +0100 (MET)
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.de>
To:        barnes@biodec.wustl.edu
Cc:        questions@FreeBSD.org (FreeBSD Questions)
Subject:   Re: Mouse vs. Xwindows
Message-ID:  <199612020846.JAA00401@freebie.lemis.de>
In-Reply-To: <94952.barnes@biodec.wustl.edu> from "Wayne M. Barnes, Ph.D." at "Dec 1, 96 11:53:07 pm"

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Excuse me for copying -questions on this one, but I think some of
these questions are of general interest.

Wayne M. Barnes, Ph.D. writes:
>
>      Thank you for telling me about the Ctrl- addition to alt-F2.  I didn't
> know about that or about Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, either.  [ When I go from
> Xwindows to screen2, and then back, Xwindows isn't there anymore.  Is that
> normal?]

No, that's not normal.  What is there on alt-F2?  You probably have a
getty.  There's more than F1 and F2; if you just get a login prompt,
it's another virtual terminal.  Keep trying all of them.

>      This allowed me to spend more time with my Xwindows/mouse problem,
> which I eventually solved by noticing a slide switch on the bottom of
> my Mouse Systems mouse:  2<-->3     It was in position 2, and when I
> rebooted with it on 3, my Xwindows no longer seizes, the mouse pointer
> moves normally, and buttons 1 and 2 work fine to mark and paste text.

Yes, this is a common one.  I suppose I should put something in the
book about it.

>       HOWEVER, I have only moved on to a new problem:
>
>       My eventual application will require finer resolution from the
> CtrlAlt+ key combination to "zoom".  At my office, this works, but at home,
> although the initial resolution is fine, the two alternate ones don't work.

This is probably not the way you should want to approach the problem.
I would suggest that you keep the highest resolution possible, and
change the font sizes or whatever.  By lowering the resolution, you do
just that: you get a bigger picture from the same image, but the
resolution isn't as high, so you don't really gain anything.

>       Alternate one gives about 4 horizontal regions that scroll slowly
> vertically.  Alternate two gives two areas that flash a little.  On the
> third push of CrtlAlt+, the first resolution is back, and it's fine.

This is one example of your monitor not syncing with your display
card.  It could damage the monitor.

>       What could I fiddle to get the alternate (finer) resolutions to work,
> or do I just need to buy a new monitor?  I did already buy a new (used)
> video card, so I would be sure to be specifying it correctly to XF86Config,
> but I was guessing about my (old) monitor.

The guess is probably correct.  There's some stuff about display
tuning in "The Complete FreeBSD", chapter 8, starting on page 112.
The important thing is to know the capabilities of your monitor.  The
important thing is *not* the "resolution" or the "display frequency",
which is how people sell monitors.  It's the maximum horizontal
frequency.  If you don't know that, you could be in trouble: you can
find a way to get it to work by gradually raising the horizontal
frequency until the monitor no longer syncs, but the chances are that
this will result in settings out of spec, and there's no way to know
where you leave the specs.  Take a look at the monitor database in
/usr/X11/lib/X11/doc/Monitors--maybe you'll find your monitor or
something like it.

>       I have looked at the FreeBSD handbook for quite a while, but I can't
> yet understand anything there about starting up to dial my modem and
> establish a PPP connection.

Hmm.  That's another subject.  I don't have much input on that right
now, but I'll see what I can do.

>       Anyway, I have made a lot of progress this weekend, so thanks very
> much.

You're welcome.

Greg














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