[CentOS] Strange behavior in X, esp. VMWare Windows

Mon Apr 30 18:29:44 UTC 2007
Mark Hull-Richter <mhullrich at gmail.com>

Last Thursday, for some reason (possibly a power failure), my work
desktop had a different video configuration than when I left Wednesday
evening.  I have two 17" flat panels configured as a two-head wide
(side-by-side) single display.  When I arrived on Thu, I had two
individual desktops instead, the resolution was down to 800x600, and
so on.  The monitor type had been reset to generic 800x600, and the
vido card was unknown.  (This was not true before.)

After a lot of fooling around with the xorg.conf file, I finally got
it back to where it should be, for the most part.  My current
xorg.conf is included below.

The problem is that I typically run certain apps on the right screen,
including seamonkey and Windows under VMWare workstation, and since
the new configuration came in, the mouse cursor is not where it should
be.  Items light up when I run the mouse over them, but a little below
and to the right of the tip of the pointer.  It is only a slight
dislocation, but significantly worse in the Windows on VMWare, and it
is really annoying when I have to mis-aim the cursor to hit certain
selections (check boxes, bullets, etc.).

Can anyone explain this?  Here's my xorg.conf:


# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "Default Layout"
	Screen      0  "aticonfig-Screen[0]" 0 0
	Screen         "aticonfig-Screen[1]" RightOf "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
	InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
	InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
	Option	    "Xinerama" "on"
	Option	    "Clone" "off"
EndSection

Section "Files"

# RgbPath is the location of the RGB database.  Note, this is the name of the
# file minus the extension (like ".txt" or ".db").  There is normally
# no need to change the default.
# Multiple FontPath entries are allowed (they are concatenated together)
# By default, Red Hat 6.0 and later now use a font server independent of
# the X server to render fonts.
	RgbPath      "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"
	FontPath     "unix/:7100"
EndSection

Section "Module"
	Load  "dbe"
	Load  "extmod"
	Load  "fbdevhw"
	Load  "glx"
	Load  "record"
	Load  "freetype"
	Load  "type1"
	Load  "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# Specify which keyboard LEDs can be user-controlled (eg, with xset(1))
#	Option	"Xleds"		"1 2 3"
# To disable the XKEYBOARD extension, uncomment XkbDisable.
#	Option	"XkbDisable"
# To customise the XKB settings to suit your keyboard, modify the
# lines below (which are the defaults).  For example, for a non-U.S.
# keyboard, you will probably want to use:
#	Option	"XkbModel"	"pc102"
# If you have a US Microsoft Natural keyboard, you can use:
#	Option	"XkbModel"	"microsoft"
#
# Then to change the language, change the Layout setting.
# For example, a german layout can be obtained with:
#	Option	"XkbLayout"	"de"
# or:
#	Option	"XkbLayout"	"de"
#	Option	"XkbVariant"	"nodeadkeys"
#
# If you'd like to switch the positions of your capslock and
# control keys, use:
#	Option	"XkbOptions"	"ctrl:swapcaps"
# Or if you just want both to be control, use:
#	Option	"XkbOptions"	"ctrl:nocaps"
#
	Identifier  "Keyboard0"
	Driver      "kbd"
	Option	    "XkbModel" "pc105"
	Option	    "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Mouse0"
	Driver      "mouse"
	Option	    "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
	Option	    "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
	Option	    "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
	Option	    "Emulate3Buttons" "yes"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "Monitor0"
	VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
	ModelName    "Dell 1704FPT (Digital)"
	HorizSync    30.0 - 81.0
	VertRefresh  56.0 - 76.0
	Option	    "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "Monitor1"
	VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
	ModelName    "Dell 1704FPT (Digital)"
	HorizSync    30.0 - 81.0
	VertRefresh  56.0 - 76.0
	Option	    "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
	VendorName   "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	ModelName    "LCD Panel 1280x1024"
	HorizSync    31.5 - 67.0
	VertRefresh  50.0 - 75.0
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "aticonfig-Monitor[1]"
	VendorName   "ATI Proprietary Driver"
	ModelName    "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
	Option	    "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Videocard0"
	Driver      "vesa"
	VendorName  "Videocard vendor"
	BoardName   "VESA driver (generic)"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[0]"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	BoardName   "Unknown video card"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "aticonfig-Device[1]"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
	Screen      1
EndSection

Section "Screen"

#	SubSection "Display"
#		Viewport   0 0
#		Depth     16
#		Modes    "800x600" "640x480"
#	EndSubSection
	Identifier "Screen0"
	Device     "Videocard0"
	Monitor    "Monitor0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
		Modes    "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
		Modes    "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[0]"
	Device     "aticonfig-Device[0]"
	Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[0]"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
		Modes    "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "aticonfig-Screen[1]"
	Device     "aticonfig-Device[1]"
	Monitor    "aticonfig-Monitor[1]"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
	Group        0
	Mode         0666
EndSection


-- 
Mark Hull-Richter, Linux Kernel Engineer
DATAllegro (www.datallegro.com)
85 Enterprise, Second Floor, Aliso Viejo, CA  92656
949-680-3082 - Office     949-330-7691 - fax