Changing the display mode from the command line

[Suzanne Payne]

--On Monday, June 9, 2003 5:30 pm -0400 toehead2@juno.com wrote:

> Hi. I accidentally hit "millions of colors" on the display panle because
> i thought my monitor could handle it. Evidentally it can't . The video is
> too garbled to read. I can get to the raw command line by usign the linux
> single kernel argument. How can i set the display back to thousands of
> colors from here?

You need to edit the XF86Config file.  There are two places it could be, 
but the most likely place is: /etc/X11/XF86Config
You can use pico.  At the command prompt type:

su pico /etc/X11/XF86Config

You'll be asked for your password (the su is because you need to be root to 
edit the file)

Using the arrow keys scroll down the page and look for the section that 
looks something like:

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Screen0"
	Device		"ATI Rage Mobility"
	Monitor		"Monitor0"
	DefaultDepth	"32"
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth	32
		Modes	"1024x768"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Where it says 'DefaultDepth  "32"' you need to change the number to "24"
Where it says in the SubSection 'Depth 32', you need to change it to 'Depth 
24' (note there might already be a line in the SubSection which says Depth 
24, in which case you don't need to change it.  The important thing is the 
DefaultDepth, and making sure there is one line in the SubSection which has 
the same Depth number.

Then press ctrl-o and then <enter> at the prompt to write out the file and 
then ctrl-x to exit pico.  You should be back to the command line.  Type 
startx to startup X again.

If it still doesn't work, re-edit the XF86Config file as per above, this 
time making the DefaultDepth (and corresponding SubSection) 16.

Hope this helps
Suzanne