Because of XFree86, Linux does not support the "autofit guest", or arbitrary resizing option that will snap the VMWare window to the resolution of the guest operating system if you have the VMWare tools installed. This can be a real pain if you're trying to use a widescreen display and you want the window to fill out the screen. In my particular situation, I was using a Toshiba laptop with a 15-inch widescreen display that would display a maximum of 1280x768 at 60 Hertz. The only default resolution that I could get to work through the VMware-config-tools.pl utility was 640x480 without scroll bars. Obviously, this wasn't acceptable so I decided to play with some manual mode line configurations in Linux to get my screen where I wanted it.
The hardware I will be using in this example is a Toshiba Satellite M55-S331 with a 15-inch widescreen display. The software is Windows XP Professional with the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator Driver, VMWare Workstation version 5.5.1 and the guest OS is CentOS 4.3 Final, with VMWare tools installed and working correctly.
NOTE:
Before we begin to make absolutely sure that you know what you're doing. Monitors can be easily damaged by incorrect driver configurations so USE THESE INSTRUCTIONS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! Computernetworkinghelp.com is not responsible for any damage that might occur if this article is misused.Part One: Figuring out the proper mode line configuration.
First things first, we need to find the maximum resolution that our display is capable of running. In this case, based on the hardware and the software installed, it was 1280x768 at 60 Hz.
Next, we need a mode line calculator to figure out a setting to start out with, I use the XFree86 calculator on this site online:
Since I needed a nice fitting window with my XP start menu showing and no scroll bars I knew that I needed to go smaller than the max of 1280x768. I plugged in multiple settings with smaller resolutions at the proper refresh rate until I found the rather odd resolution that I needed, which is 1264x678 at a 60Hz refresh rate. You will also have to play around to get the proper fit based on your equipment, software, and drivers.
So I have my resolution and refresh rate and I need to plug these into the mode line calculator in order to get the proper settings for my display. Take a look at the screenshot in Figure 1-A below:
Mode Line Calculator
Once I have the proper fields filled in with my requirements I click on the calculate button and get the screen below in Figure 1-B:Mode Line Result
Part Two: Manually editing the configuration file.
Now, that I have the proper configuration information for my new mode line I will need to manually configure the new data into /etc/X11/xorg.conf and then restart the Virtual Machine. So first we need to open up /etc/X11/xorg.conf into a text editor and add the mode line. Find the (Section "Monitor") portion of the file and below that, you will see the default mode line configurations. I added my new mode line directly below the default mode line for 1280x800 resolution but you can plug this line in anywhere inside of the mode line configuration area. See the new mode line that I added, highlighted, in the screenshot in Figure 2-A below:
Mode Line Edit
Now that you've added your mode line you will need to find the (Subsection "Display") portion of the file by scrolling down towards the bottom. Here I edit the default setting which was 1024x768 in this case and change them all to 1264x678 except for the first one (VGA setting) which I leave at 640x480. You can see an example of the portions that I changed to 1264x678 in the highlighted section of the screenshot in Figure 2-B below:
Mode Line Display
Once you've completed the edits you can reboot your virtual machine and the new display resolution will be used. I must again stress the fact that I'm only using this as an example to help you figure out the settings for your specific case. These are dependant upon many things including the hardware, host operating system, drivers, VMWare version and the guest operating systems and drivers.
Monitors can be easily damaged by incorrect driver configurations so USE THESE INSTRUCTIONS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!
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