Display settings Hosed if Second Monitor is Connected on Boot-up

thund3rstruck · 05-05-2011, 05:59 AM

Hey guys,

I'm trying to get my secondary display (DVI-Out) working on a laptop (built-in monitor & external display) and I'm afraid I made quite the mess of it installing the proprietary driver only to learn that my old ATI card is no longer supported and having to clean that up and reinstall the original distro driver!

Anyways, I reverted back to the open source driver and all is ok. That is until I reboot. If I reboot with the DVI display connected then both displays are brought up in 640x480 res and look terrible.

What do I have to do to be able to leave my DVI display connected when I start up the machine and get it to render the way it does when I plug in the display after the machine is running?

Code:

Distro: Linux Mint 10
Adapter: ATI Radeon Mobility X1400
Xorg: 1.9

I suspect I need to create an xorg.conf file but these fancy modern Linuxes these days don't come with one (or maybe they no longer need it anymore).

Thanks for any tips!

nicolasjengler · 05-05-2011, 08:19 AM

You can generate a Xorg.conf file and modify it in a way that works for you.

If you want to generate the file, start the PC in recovery mode, or go to a terminal and kill all the X's processes running. Then execute:

Code:

xorg -configure

There will be a new file created called Xorg.conf.new so we are going to do this:

Code:

mv xorg.conf.new xorg.conf

In order to modify it:

Code:

nano xorg.conf

And there you go, change it to your preferences and reboot.

If it didn't worked on the reboot you may want to remove the xorg.conf file

Code:

rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and reboot.

Good luck.

thund3rstruck · 05-06-2011, 05:44 PM

I've lost several hours on this today and I can't get it to work so I figured I'd drop my configs out here to see if someone spots anything obvious.

The machine boots and I see the pretty Linux Mint logo on both screens as it loads. Then the login screen appears and the DVI montior shuts off. The login applet isn't visible on the laptop screen so there's no way to login or reboot. If I remove xorg.conf and unplug the monitor I can boot fine. After I'm logged in if I plug in the monitor it works just fine. What can I do so I can just boot the machine with the DVI monitor plugged in? I hate having to unplug it to boot up and then plug it back in after I'm logged in.

Any ideas?

Code:

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "Dual Heads"
	Screen		0 "Internal Screen" 0 0
	Screen		1 "External Screen" RightOf "Internal Screen"		
	InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
	InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Keyboard0"
	Driver      "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Mouse0"
	Driver      "mouse"
	Option	    "Protocol" "auto"
	Option	    "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
	Option	    "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"ATI RADEON Mobility X1400 (Primary)"
	Driver		"radeon"
	BusID		"PCI:1:0:0"
	Screen		0
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"ATI RADEON Mobility X1400 (Secondary)"
	Driver		"radeon"
	BusID		"PCI:1:0:0"
	Screen		1
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Laptop LCD"
	Option		"DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"External LCD"
	VendorName	"Acer"
	ModelName	"AL2002W"
	HorizSync	30-81
	VertRefresh	56-76
	Option		"DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Internal Screen"
	Device     "ATI RADEON Mobility X1400 (Primary)"
	Monitor    "Laptop LCD"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
                Depth	1
                Modes	"1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth	4
                Modes	"1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth	8
                Modes	"1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth	15
                Modes	"1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth	16
                Modes	"1024x768"
        EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth	24
		Modes	"1280x800"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "External Screen"
	Device     "ATI RADEON Mobility X1400 (Secondary)"
	Monitor    "External LCD"
	DefaultDepth	24
	SubSection "Display"
                Depth	1
                Modes	"1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth	4
                Modes	"1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth	8
                Modes	"1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth	15
                Modes	"1024x768"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth	16
                Modes	"1024x768"
        EndSubSection
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth	24
		Modes	"1680x1050"
	EndSubSection
EndSection