I have two computers using crt monitors that support 1280x1024, but neither one automatically boots that way, they start up 1024x768.

I'll deal with the easy one is this thread, and hopefully the solution applies to the other one too, if not I'll address that afterwards.

So, after boot, all I have to do is select 1280x1024 from the ArandR menu. So I put a login command to xrandr it and that works fine too, so now I boot fine.

tldr - after going to fullscreen and back, it goes back to 1024x768.

The problem is, this computer is used by my little kids for games, and I've set everything to run full screen. And on some games that allow the setting, I've set them to whatever the lowest resolution they support, i.e. 640x480 or 800x600. This is because most of these games look just as good at those resolutions fullscreen anyway, and they are slow computers and gameplay slows down on some games if I keep them at higher resolution.

So when they exit a game and return to the desktop, which I've arranged with icons around the edges for their games, it's back to 1024x768 and thus the icons are overlapping/etc. I could just rearrange the desktop and stick with 1024x768, but then when I do use the computer to web browse or whatever it's too small. Plus when they watch a 720p video, they would no longer actually getting 720p quality cuz they need the 1280 width (not that they would probably notice, but this stuff matters to me!).

This is only I have found

https://askubuntu.com/questions/178767/fixed-resolution
https://askubuntu.com/questions/2370...i-close-a-game

Ya, seems have to just execute xrandr command to fix it after ever game that breaks it. I was hoping there was a general fix. I already applied that workaround on the other machine to every single desktop file, changing the exec line to sh -c "oldExecLine ; path/scriptToSetResolution" and made a script to fix it (with the thought that if I change monitors and dont want it to force 1280x1024 anymore I only have one script to edit instead of a million desktop files). Just annoying to have to do, but does work.

does it do that with every sort of fullscreen activity, or only with (some) games?
i'd say the games are broken.
i have very few here on my machine that do that also.
or maybe they can be set up to run in full resolution.

also, do you really bombard your kids with Cathode Ray Tubes? I thought those died out ~10 years ago...

It seems to be with every fullscreen activity that changes resolution. For example gcompris runs fullscreen without issue.

Some that do it include frozen-bubbles from bodhi appcenter. This game defaults to 800x600, there is no configuration of resolution.

Other examples include supertux and extreme tux racer. They have lots of resolutions to choose from, but if I have to turn it down to minimum to avoid gameplay slowdown.

Also, I really do, these were dormant for a while so they haven't died yet.

ok.

output of please.