[PSUbuntu]

HowTo: Fullscreen on a 1080p HDTV

I am sure that if you own a 1080p HDTV you have noticed the black borders around the edges of your desktop. You may have tried the fullscreen mode via the ps3videomode command and then experienced a desktop that was a little too large for your screen. Well ... this is a guide that will enable you to use 100% of your real estate effectively.

First, you will have to make sure that your TV settings are setup correctly. You will have to enable the "full overscan" mode on your TV for the PS3 input. You can find this option on the TV's setup menus. (the option was Settings>Screen>Display Area>Full Pixel on my Sony HDTV)

Now for the fun part ... editing some config files. First we need to edit the /etc/kboot file so that it will use fullscreen mode.

$ sudo cp /etc/kboot.conf /etc/kboot.conf.backup
$ sudo nano /etc/kboot.conf

You should see something like this. Change the video mode to 133. (it most likely is currently set as 5 if you have a 1080p TV) You can just erase the whole file and cut and paste this in there if you want.

default=ubuntu
timeout=10
root=/dev/sda3

ubuntu="/boot/vmlinux initrd=/boot/initrd.img video=ps3fb:mode:133"

Save and Exit.

Now we will have to edit our /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. We need to take out the optioonal resolutions so that the resolution will only be governed by the kboot.conf

$ sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup
$ sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll down to the "Screen" section and find the "Display" subsection that corresponds to the depth of 24 and delete the "Modes" line.

The "Screen" section should now look like this ... (if you used the original xorg.conf from the tutorial ... if you didn't, I will assume that you can figue this out)

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Default Screen"
        Device          "Generic Video Card"
        Monitor         "Generic Monitor"
        DefaultDepth    24
        DefaultFbBpp    32


        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           24
                FbBpp           32
        EndSubSection

        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           15
                Modes           "1024x720" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection

        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           16
                Modes           "576x384" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Now we can reboot just to see if it will all come together automagically.
Code:

$ sudo reboot

Enjoy the extra large desktop!