Two desktop environments are available on the linux systems: KDE and GNOME. The default is KDE.

If you want to change your screen resolution from the system default, you can use the “screen resize and rotate” utility, under the “system tools” KDE menu.

There is also a KDE tray tool that can be started by typing krandrtray in a xterm window.

To change the screen resolution from the default, use the “Screen Resolution” tool under the “Preferences” GNOME Applications menu.

From the command line, you can use the xrandr utility.

• Get a list of available resolutions with the command “xrandr -q”. This will give you a list of resolutions, each one has an index number with the default being 0.
• Change your resolution using “xrandr -s n”, where n is the index.
• If for some reason you lose the display (eg the monitor won't sync), hit up arrow, delete, zero, enter (to set it back to index 0).

The nice thing about this command is you can put it in a suitable login script to set it automatically.