VESA modes

[Jorge Almeida]

I could use some help to understand what VESA standard modes are, and
how to use such beasts. From what [I think] I understood, the xorg server has
built-in knowledge about VESA modes. Hence, instead of writing a line like
ModeLine "1280x1024" 108.0   1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync
in Section "Monitor" of xorg.conf, and then writing
Modes "1280x1024"
in Section "Screen", SubSection "Display",
one could simply write the latter, because the above modeline happens to
be one of the VESA modes.
What confuses me no-end is that the label "1280x1024" is associated with
several modelines, corresponding to different refresh rates. So, how
does the server know what to do? In KDE, one can choose a frequency in
the Control Panel, but that must be a front-end to something more
basic...

-- 
Jorge Almeida