Acer 17" LCD AL1714MS

My early birthday present this year is a Acer 17" LCD AL1714MS Monitor. I'm very happy with it. It's extremely bright and clear and big enough to serve as a second TV for playing DVDs. It's amazing how cheap a big LCD is these days. I saw my old CRT monitor on sale in a charity shop nearby for £12 (about $20). I think it cost $400 new several years ago.

There was only one minor annoyances with the Acer. It didn't come with any technical documentation whatsoever. I had to go to the Amazon page (linked above) to find out what the horizontal and vertical frequencies were so that I can use it with Linux.

Three steps to get it to work with Ubuntu:
1. sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
(just accept all the defaults)

2. Add the "HorizSync" line to this section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "Acer AL1714"
        Option          "DPMS"
        HorizSync       30-82
EndSection

3. sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig
(choose the LCD option.)