Firstly, power down the image and edit the configuration options for your image, click on the “Video options”. Check ‘Enable custom screen resolutions’ and add the resolution (in this case, 1280×800). Make sure the resolution is enabled (checked). See the screenshot below for an example of what it should look like:

Next, boot into the VM image and let’s take a look at the xorg.conf file, here are the lines I changed that actually matter:

#HorizSync 31.5 - 48.5
HorizSync 30.0 - 82.0
#VertRefresh 50.0 - 90.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 90.0
#Option "DPMS"
ModeLine "1280x800" 80.58 1280 1344 1480 1680 800 801 804 827 -HSync -VSync

These should be in the section right after ‘Section “Monitor”‘. After changing the hsync and vsync as well as adding the mode, I changed the display section from:

SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
to:
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x800" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

It’s a good idea to change the modes for each of the depths (at least 8, 15, 16 and 24) also.

After rebooting (or killing X with Ctrl+Alt+Backspace), your screen should come up in 1280×800 resolution. Hurray!

You can see an example of my desktop setup for Hex 1.0.3-RC2 here:

You can get a copy of my entire xorg.conf file here. (Note that in this xorg.conf, CapsLock is remapped to additional control because I hate capslock with a passion).

Hope this helps someone out there

Step 1: Get the packages here: http://navi.eight7.org/~hinmanm/files/hex/wmii/, you will need all 4 packages. (hopefully my server doesn’t go down

Step 2: Install the packages. With all the packages in the same directory do:
pkg_add -v ./wmii-3.5.1.tbz
The dependencies will automatically be installed along with it.

Step 3: Hex utilizes .bash_profile to actually do the starting of X11, if you take a look at the last line in ~/.bash_profile, you’ll see:
...
if [ -z "$DISPLAY" ] && [ -z "$SSH_CLIENT" ]; then
exec startx
fi
Since X is already started, the easiest way to have wmii started instead of fluxbox is to simply change your ~/.xinitrc file to read:
while wmii; do
true
done

Step 4: Restart X, kill X with a Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, if everything works correctly, you should be staring at an extremely plain desktop. Hit Alt+Enter to open an xterm.

Step 5: wmii uses the /usr/local/etc/wmii-3.5/wmiirc file to store its configuration options, there are a few lines that need to be changed in order to fit wmii into hex a little better:

WMII_TERM="xterm"
changes to:
WMII_TERM="mrxvt"

xsetroot -solid $WMII_BACKGROUND
changes to whatever background-setting command you like to use, mine is set to:
Esetroot -center /home/analyzt/rp-Wallpapers/rp-team.jpg

In addition, to make using Alt as the MODKEY non-annoying (change the MODKEY=Mod1 setting if you want to use something other than Alt), there are a few changes that should go into ~/.mrxvtrc:

The line:
Mrxvt.macro.Alt+1: GotoTab 1
changed to:
Mrxvt.macro.Ctrl+1: GotoTab 1

Repeat for all the GotoTab # commands. Since wmii uses Alt+# to switch workspaces, using them to switch mrxvt tabs doesn’t work either.

Step 6: Restart wmii, hitting ‘Alt+p’ and selecting ‘quit’ should prompt wmii to restart, with the new settings, now hitting Alt+Enter should open the standard mrxvt terminal.

Check out the guide for additional info on how to use wmii. I am loving the lightweight feel and speedy response I’m getting so far, it works great for running Hex in virtualization, as it’s even lighter weight than Fluxbox is.

Good luck!

P.S. Hex 1.0.3 should be out any day now, It will have NSM-Console 0.5-DEVEL version on it, which I will be releasing additionally for download at the same time, look forward to it!