Unknown Display problem in Linux Mint

Swadhin Ray
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The purpose of this article is to fix the unknown display problem in Linux Mint operating system. After installing the OS if you see Display monitor is not recognized then we can install "MESA" utilities to fix this problem or we can install additional drivers, for example Nvidia or ATI cards.
I am using a Minti OS on virtual machine, but when I tried to change the resolution I am not able to select anything.

Here are the steps to identify if the problem exist on your operating system.
swadhin.ray-000024.pngType Display on the search and click on the Display options as shown in above screen. Now if we try to select the drop down option from Resolution attribute then I am not able to select anything other than 640 x 480. It also has the same problem on other attributes like Refresh rate and Rotation. Finally when clicked on Detect monitors nothing happens: still shows the same problem.
swadhin.ray-000025.pngWe might see the "Unknow " message under Monitor attribute.
swadhin.ray-000026.pngTo fix this let's open terminal.
swadhin.ray-000027.pngType "sudo apt-get install mesa-utils" and provide your root password or if your existing user is a super user then use the same password.
swadhin.ray-000028.pngThis will install the mesa-utils package. Restart or reboot your OS.
swadhin.ray-000029.pngTo verify the installtion type " glxinfo | grep render " once your system is restarted:
swadhin.ray-000030.pngProvide the password to login.

swadhin.ray-000032.pngOnce restarted open terminal and type "glxinfo | grep render " and then type "glxgears".
swadhin.ray-000031.pngOnce done check the display again to verify if the issue is fixed or not.
swadhin.ray-000035.pngNow you can see that under "Monitor Preference" it shows "VBX" and we can now change the resolution to our preferences. Check the "Resolution ", "Refresh rate"  and "Rotation" attributes to choose the appropriate one whcih suits your needs.
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Swadhin Ray
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Comments (5)

If you have more Mint articles in mind, I'll be a reader. This article actually gave me an idea for a similar problem on a non-Mint distro (though Mint is my personal standard).
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Commented:
@tliotta : Thanks for your comments , Yes I do have few things in my mind will try to submit soon.
‘Once done check the display again to verify if the issue is fixed or not.’
What if it is not?
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Commented:
@Ivan: Try to repeat the same process and also check if VGA output is disabled from the BIOS.  In my case, I was able to fix it by using the steps mentioned.
@Swadhin: Thanks for the hint; unfortunately the BIOS setup utility of this computer (Eee PC 1001HA) doesn't have such a setting.  I gave up on Linux Mint and installed Linux Lite instead.

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