[00:30] <HowdyDoody> I setup my monitor to run on 75khz. Now it has change the refresh rate by itself to 83.3Khz and monitor refuses to display.   Is there a command line way to change the refresh rate of a monitor/card system ?  Ctrl-ALT-F3 gives me a prompt, but what to do to change refresh rate ?
[00:34] <waltman> HowdyDoody: These days I just let X autoconfig and let it use whatever refresh rate it wants to. Why do you want to use 75 khz?
[00:35] <HowdyDoody> Cause it was trying to use 60 and was blinky.
[00:36] <waltman> ah
[00:37] <waltman> Is it an old card and/or monitor?
[00:37] <HowdyDoody> Hmmm, may be mixing up my Hz and kHz     got 60 wanted 75 Hz and set it there.   Take out of screen saver mode later and get monitor message that can't display 83.3 kHz/300 Hz out of scan range
[00:39] <waltman> X reads a config file when it starts up, but trying to tweak the monitor settings there is nontrivial.
[00:39] <HowdyDoody> old Nvidia  uses 173 driver PNY nvidia GeForce 8500 GT
[00:40] <HowdyDoody> X used to read a config file until ubuntu took it out a couple or so versions ago.
[00:40] <waltman> Ah, then I *really* don't know the answer. :(
[00:41] <waltman> I was just trying to cover the simple  fixes, but it seems clear now that you're already aware of them.
[00:42] <waltman> Oh well, it's Friday night and also a Jewish holiday. Maybe someone will come around later who can help.
[00:42] <HowdyDoody> I used to tweek that x file until ubuntu took it away.
[00:43] <HowdyDoody> If you're Jewish, shouldn't you be offline since sundown ?
[00:43] <waltman> it's got to save the settings *somewhere* thought, right? :)
[00:43] <waltman> I'm not Jewish, hence not offline :)
[00:47] <HowdyDoody> (08:43:35 PM) waltman: it's got to save the settings *somewhere* thought, right? :)   <-- I thought so too back then, others said use Compiz or nvidia app.  But both are GUI.   Is there a command line to card -->do default, NOW !   Then I could go back to GUI to fix again.
[00:48] <waltman> sorry, I've exhausted all of my suggestions
[00:49] <HowdyDoody> bummer
[00:49] <HowdyDoody> What about the rest of you all ?  All sawin' zzzz's ?
[01:06] <jedijf> HowdyDoody: xrandr
[01:06] <jedijf> HowdyDoody: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Resolution
[01:09] <HowdyDoody> $ xrandr    <--- can't open display
[01:11] <jedijf> ahh - alt ctl f7
[01:11] <jedijf> then open terminal
[01:11] <jedijf> you were in console, there is no X in 1-6 *console*
[01:23] <HowdyDoody> so xrandr only works on consoles with GUI running in them ?
[01:24] <HowdyDoody> $ mv ~/.config/monitorsd.xml ~/.config/monitorsdold.xml    instead of rm
[01:25] <HowdyDoody> That got gui working again.
[01:26] <HowdyDoody> ODD though the window for Pidgin is all grey, no text.   All other windows working ok.
[01:35] <HowdyDoody> After Loooongg while, Pidgin goes white for 3 seconds, then back to grey.
[05:36] <square-r00t> HowdyDoody: library issue or I/O load is my guess
[06:10] <HowdyDoody> square-r00t: I see InHisName is still in the room, that's the machine behaving grey/white cycles.  It is in some kind of overload like you suggested, but not enough to kick out my presence in the chat room yet.  Just for the practice of things, is there a way to fix it without terminating Pidgin and restarting it ?  Someday this may occur again and I may not have a duplicate cnx to all chats like myself in my backup machine
[06:30] <square-r00t> top
[06:30] <square-r00t> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coonass
[06:30] <square-r00t> that is... the wrong paste.
[06:30] <square-r00t> http://linux.about.com/od/commands/l/blcmdl1_top.htm
[06:31] <square-r00t> for I/O stuff specifically, iotop is pretty handy. http://www.cyberciti.biz/hardware/linux-iotop-simple-top-like-io-monitor/
[07:11] <HowdyDoody> top shows 1. pidgin, 2 firefox, 3. compiz, 4. xorg (mostly), 5. varies  with pidgin taking 99+% of cpu
[07:13] <HowdyDoody> sudo iotop --only, shows only firefox items (2) plus occasionally [jbd2/dm - numbers]
[07:13] <HowdyDoody> Is pidgin too far gone to save ?
[07:19] <square-r00t> it's still UP? yeah, kill it man
[07:19] <square-r00t> pkill pidgin
[07:19] <square-r00t> if it doesn't die, pkill -9 pidgin
[07:27] <HowdyDoody> wow, nother new command -->pkill   [07:27] <HowdyDoody> watch for InHisName to disappear for a few moments.
[07:28] <square-r00t> pkill lets you kill by program name instead of PID. :)
[07:29] <square-r00t> you can also use killall - on LINUX. on older bsd variants / other unices it does something entiiiiirely different.
[07:33] <square-r00t> if you need to run the command from the same machine in the future, you can either run it as one-off (alt+f2 if enabled in your DE) and run the command there, open a terminal (the command to open a terminal window in that shortcut alt+f2 box is gnome-terminal), or switch to a TTY if your entire DE is locked up (ctrl+alt+f1, login- alt+f7 is usually how to get back to your desktop interface. may be alt+f6, may be alt+f8, etc.)
[07:36] <InHisName> Mine is the f7 one when I want to switch back.
[07:36] <InHisName> It wasn't all that bad.  Missed out on 1 min 58 seconds worth of chat.    It plays old history last captured along with new stuff.
[07:37] <square-r00t> it usually will be f7, yeah. it can be f8, f9, etc. if X crashes but recovers
[07:39] <HowdyDoody> It's gettin' late, need my 2nd nap to finish sleeping, so's I wont be sleepy all day.
[08:47] <jackson> morning
[10:14] <rmg51> Morning
[11:02] <jedijf> square-r00t: for future assistance they get 6 consoles f1-6 all flavors ubu - good work
[11:42] <JonathanD> Morning.
[12:22] <waltman> morning
[16:55] <HowdyDoody> Afternoon