Changing Linux Screen Resolution In Parallels


I've had parallels running now for some time on my MacBook Pro and it's really nice to be able to fire up Windows or Linux when needed. I have a feeling this is going to come in real handy this fall when I'm teaching CS462 and have 40 students using Linux to do their assignment. I can keep a fresh image that's identical to the one their using and just fire it up when I need to try something out.

One thing that's bothered me, however, is that Fedora didn't want to create screens bigger and 800x600. I knew I'd blown over this on the install, but figured I'd come back and figure it out later. Maybe I was Googling the wrong terms, but I couldn't find much specific to setting up screen resolutions on Linux running under Parallels.

Tonight I spent a few minutes figuring it out because John Dougall was having the same problem. As an aside, don't you wish your state representative ran Linux? Here's what I did.

First, I ran system-config-display and selected "Generic LCD Panel 1280x1024" under the "Hardware" tab. Then I edited (by hand) /etc/X11/xorg.conf to change the Modes line in the Section "Screen" declaration to read:

Modes "1280x1024"

This did it. Logging out and logging back in started up the larger screen. I couldn't change the hardware from "Generic" but that didn't seem to matter.


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Last modified: Thu Oct 10 12:47:18 2019.