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I wasn't able to find "modesetting" in kern.log

That may or may not be a problem, but it is sort of weird. One way for that to happen is to install a video card with a proprietary driver that generates a new grub.cfg with kernel parameter "nomodeset" during the driver installation.

This is what that little script spits out when I ran it on an old motherboard with onboard video. This is on a minimal install of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS with ratpoison as the window manager, no display manager, and no xorg.conf.

Jan 16 06:20:34 nostr0mo kernel: [    1.816935] [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled.
Jan 16 06:20:34 nostr0mo kernel: [    1.822090] [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (RS780 0x1002:0x9616 0x1458:0xD000).
[    14.018] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1600x900"x60.0  108.00  1600 1624 1704 1800  900 901 904 1000 +hsync +vsync (60.0 kHz eP)
[    14.018] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1280x1024"x60.0  108.00  1280 1328 1440 1688  1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync (64.0 kHz e)
[    14.018] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1440x900"x59.9  106.50  1440 1520 1672 1904  900 903 909 934 -hsync +vsync (55.9 kHz e)
[    14.018] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1280x720"x60.0   74.25  1280 1390 1430 1650  720 725 730 750 +hsync +vsync (45.0 kHz e)
[    14.018] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1024x768"x60.0   65.00  1024 1048 1184 1344  768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync (48.4 kHz e)
[    14.018] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "800x600"x60.3   40.00  800 840 968 1056  600 601 605 628 +hsync +vsync (37.9 kHz e)
[    14.018] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "640x480"x60.0   25.20  640 656 752 800  480 490 492 525 -hsync -vsync (31.5 kHz e)
[    14.018] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "720x400"x70.1   28.32  720 738 846 900  400 412 414 449 -hsync +vsync (31.5 kHz e)
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1600 x 900, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA-0 connected primary 1600x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 443mm x 249mm
   1600x900      60.00*+
   1280x1024     60.02  
   1440x900      59.89  
   1280x720      60.00  
   1024x768      60.00  
   800x600       60.32  
   640x480       60.00  
   720x400       70.08

I assume that the kernel modesetting has something to do with getting the correct display resolution without an xorg.conf.

If you look at

man Xorg

there is a -configure option that will create an xorg.conf file for you.

caveat: I have never done this, and I don't know how it works.

I looked at the Xorg command yesterday and get the following when I run it. I guess I could drop to runlevel 2 or 1, and try it again. It seems like it doesn't want X to be running already when you run it. Will try that tonight. (might try it in a VM first to check out behaviour)

NUC:~$ Xorg -configure 
(EE) 
Fatal server error:
(EE) Server is already active for display 0
        If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock
        and start again.
(EE) 
(EE) 
Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support 
         at http://wiki.x.org
 for help. 
(EE)