the pivot effect with tft screens using ubuntu

Ever wanted to rotate your computer screen because a word document didn’t fit on a page? That’s now possible, if you’re the owner of a TFT screen with pivot function. It comes in quite handy if you’re reading an E-Book with a rather high resolution (e.g 120%). You won’t have to scroll to the end of the page, until the next page starts.

The best way to use the pivot function, provided that you have a Nvidia graphic card, is to install the restricted nvidia driver on ubuntu (this works smoothly on Ubuntu Feisty (6.04) and Ubuntu Gutsy (6.10)) - if you’re still using edgy you have to find the right driver for your kernel version.

After installing the restricted driver you have to open the xorg.conf file (located in /etc/X11/) - but heads up, ALWAYS backup your xorg.conf before you start editing….if you’re using an editor like Kate, then you’re on the safe side, because Kate automatically generates a backup file.