Increasing screen resolution in VNC on X

When connecting to a server without a monitor by VNC, X won’t allow you to select screen resolution higher than 640×480 on next restart. This can be easily fixed:

Open /etx/X11/xorg.conf using a text editor (pico /etx/X11/xorg.conf) and add these two lines in the Monitor section of the config file:

HorizSync 31-95
VertRefresh 50-60


Now reboot X or your server and next time you connect using VNC you’ll be able to select up to 1024×768.

The Monitor Section will look something like this when you have added the two lines:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
HorizSync 31-95
VertRefresh 50-60
EndSection


This has only been tested on Ubuntu 8 but it should work on Debian.