Contributor Afkpuz

One of the very frustrating things to me is trying to control my resolution and refresh rate. On my generic auto-detected monitor, the wrong resolution is detected. So, to change, I goto screen and graphics (which for some reason was hidden in hardy). Here, I find that I can't actually change anything here. No different choices for resolution are given, nor for the refresh rate. So, I goto tell ubuntu about my monitor. I'm met with a very long list of options which must be searched through for my specific monitor type pair with resolution. The effectiveness of screens and graphics seems to be based on whether your monitor can be properly detected.

I think that there should be a much easier GUI for manually changing resolution and refresh rate. Obviously, you gotta be careful as to not make your monitor blow up! But I think screens and graphics could be cleaned up.


Here are some changes I think would help

1.) Don't display every monitor possibility in one list.

I'm thinking drop down boxes would be much better than a list with 50 choices. So, there could be a drop down box for monitor type (CRT, LCD, Plasma), for max resolution, color depth, screen number, and refresh rate. For resolution, the choices could change based on what you choose for widescreen vs. standard. There would need to be a warning about refresh rate changing, or some kind of safety net built into choosing refresh rate.



2.) Provide other optional choices that would help xorg handle you monitor better

There could be several other optional options that are found in a perfectly-detected-monitor xorg.conf. I'm basing this off of options I've seen within xorg.conf

*Physical size of the screen, orientation of screen (for secondary monitors), horizontal refresh

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In Hardy Heron, it is very difficult to change the default DVD player. This did not used to be the case. In gutsy, there was an option in the system menu to enter any command you wanted to open dvds. This option needs to be brought back and be made easy to use. so, if I install a player from the repos, it should be easily picked from a list, or customizable with a command. Ubuntu should never regress!

When using the alternate install CD, I notice that there is a choice to "use the largest continuous space" when partitioning. This is really useful, especially when you have another operating system on your hard drive. All you have to do is clear out the partitions that are not needed and the installer does the rest. I think this option should be available in the live cd installer.