SuSE Support Database

Title: Screen moves around under X

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Screen moves around under X

Symptom:

After the installation of X you have a wonderful picture. The X server runs stable, but when you touch the screen margin with the mouse the entire screen moves a bit into that direction.

Cause:

Apart from the windowmanager's virtual screens that one can switch at the toolbar, the X server installs a virtual screen. One does not switch this one, but it scrolls in the way described above.

Solution:

Please have a look at the following two locations in the file /etc/XF86Config.

Please search for the following lines. They represent the screen secction. They can normally be found at the end of the file. 

Section "Screen"
   Driver          "SVGA"
   ...
   SubSection "Display"
      Depth        8
      Modes        "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "640x400"
      Virtual      1280 1024
   EndSubSection
   SubSection "Display"
      Depth        15
      Modes        "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "640x400"
      Virtual      1280 1024
   EndSubSection
EndSection
The statement Virtual in the subsection "Display" sets the virtual screen size. If you don't want a virtual screen you can simply erase these lines. You can also write a comment sign at the beginning of each of these lines.

In older XFree86 versions (< 3.2 ) a virtual line was automatically added by xf86config.

But even after removal of this statement it can still happen, that there is a virtual screen. This will happen if you don't work with the maximum configured resolution.

In the example above 5 different resolutions are available provided that the X server supports that). These are specified in the line 

Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "640x400"
If you want 1024x768 as default you have to rearrange this line : 
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "640x400" "1280x1024"
If you start up the X server with this configuration, the virtual screen will have the size 1280x1024 while a resolution of "only" 1024x768 is being used. The reason for this is that the X server always uses a virtual screen with the maximum configured resolution.

Thus, if you want a resolution of 1024x768 without a virtual screen, the following modeline is needed : 

Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" "640x400"
I.e., all other resolutions must be smaller than 1024x768.

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See also:

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Keywords: X-SERVER, XF86CONFIG, INSTALLATION, VIRTUAL SCREEN, VIRTUAL, SCREEN

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Categories: X Server

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