LCD monitor viewing angle: Is it adjustable in xorg.conf?
 

I'm trying to play around with the orientation of my monitors (portrait vs landscape), and it's now obvious to me that they are best viewed from a high angle when placed on their stands normally. As I change their orientation, it would be nice if I could manipulate what angle they are best viewed at. I doubt this is adjustable, but I thought I would come on here an ask since there are a myriad of configurations that I don't understand.

Yes, I'm sure I saw an option where Xorg gets you a cushion for your chair !

@SMOKER! NO NEED FOR TROLLING.
But no there is no way it is possible.

Tux - Linux - Google http://www.google.com/linux
Keyword = .. rotate monitor ..
Example http://www.howtodothings.com/video/h...n-ubuntu-linux
But typing : xrandr -o 1
in PCLinuxOS ( Nvidia FX 5200 ) .. nothing happens : No Nvidia support.

NO NEED FOR SHOUTING EITHER !

Is there an Xorg setting to change the colour of my monitor stand too ?

Stupid questions get stupid answers.

Come on now smoker -- every forum on earth would be overrun with stupid answers, if everyone took that attitude.

If you find a question 'stupid', and cannot answer it constructively, simply do not answer it. Move on.

Kind regards,
Sasha

@Sasha
Quite probably, but a question like
is based on the computer responding to a purely subjective human opinion of what looks best to the user. And if the monitor doesn't support it how can anything Xorg does change it ?
Is there a windows tool that guesses whether the user is satified with the appearance of the screen ?
Is there a windows tool that modifies the Z dimension of a monitor ?

I'm quite disappointed that what was meant to be a humorous response to a silly question has been turned into this.

Political correctness gone mad.

FWIW, I took the question to mean something like, "can the video output (what the monitor displays) be adjusted so that, let's say, if I'm looking at it from too low an angle, lower than is recommended, the angle could be compensated for through software?".

To which, as we know, is not possible (at least AFAIK).

It's not entirely subjective; LCD screens are designed to be viewed from a certain angle, or range of angles; if you view them from outside this 'viewable angle' range, the picture looks crappy or different. So, I took the question to be looking for something that could be done to compensate for that situation.

We have to keep in mind, that a lot of people using this forum, have barely even done more than turn a computer ON before, or haven't used anything besides what's at their local library perhaps (making no inference to the OP here). While their questions might come across as totally inane to many of us, it isn't inane to them.

And, there's no rules or laws against humor -- I can see the humor in your first reply; but it would have been better if you had added something 'serious' along with the humor, so as to both give the OP a reasonable answer, AND to not remove his question from zero-replies for nothing.

Cheers!
Sasha

The viewing angle is simply a physical property of the LCD screen, just like it's size and native resolution, so the idea of changing it in software is absurd.

This is the correct interpretation. I probably should have tried to make myself more clear.

I didn't really mind the first reply, it's the continued insistence on the stupidity and absurdity of my question that's starting to make me think that there are a bunch of jerks up in this hizzy.

Well, with the introduction of TFT screens the 'adjust viewing angle' button seemed to become obsolete. However, the predecessor of the TFT (what was that name again? TN?) had to be adjusted for viewing angle. Now this was not usually something which could be done from the computer or the graphics driver, usually it was a turn or slide button which directly influenced a certain control voltage in the LCD hardware. Sometimes you still find this on monochrome displays, and in embedded systems often you can adjust the view angle in software. This is of course highly dependent on the design of the embedded system. As I don't see a reason why this voltage cannot be produced by the VGA card, the question is far from stupid. It is physically perfectly possible, it is just not in the VGA standard.

But reading this thread and the problem of the OP, I have another nagging question... there do exist rotatable LCD monitors which can be put in portrait or landscape position. Without question those monitors must show a perfect picture, certainly if used on a windows computer. If I turn my laptop 90 degrees, the picture quality is gone. How in the world can these rotatable monitors produce a good picture? Do they have a position sensor and adjust some voltage inside?

jlinkels

Think of the viewing angle as a cone projected from the center of the screen. If your eyes stay in that cone, then you can view the screen, regardless of what orientation it is at, horizontal, vertical, or something in between.

@ jlinkels -- I have two rotating monitors as well; I use them in landscape for two or more reasons:

1) the included rotation software was for Windows.
2) the nVidia driver doesn't support dynamic RandR anyways.
3) they won't fit in my computer desk in portrait orientation.

I haven't really any idea what if anything, my monitor might do to itself internally (physically/electronically), if I am to rotate it. But: One thing (at the very least) that I am curious about, if someone were to rotate their monitor and use RandR to rotate the image, would be the anti-aliasing setting for fonts. Would it be different?

E.g.:
If I run the aliasing test(s) from one of those websites, it shows my setting should be "VRGB" which is what I use; however, if I rotate the monitor, and rotate the image accordingly, and look at the same anti-aliasing tests, would I be given the same result? I haven't tried it, but I suspect the result would be different.

Another thing: If I tilt my head, and look at my monitor (pretend it's portrait mode) right now, it is obvious to my eyes that the backlight is NOT ideally situated for the portrait mode; this is because, in landscape mode, I'm supposed to look at the screen from an angle of ever-so-slightly above centerline, which in portrait mode translates to "slightly-to-the-left" of centerline.

So, to comment on Quakeboy's post above (didn't see that there ;) ) -- it doesn't seem like the "cone" in your analogy, is perfectly centered vertically AND horizontally.

Hmm, I hadn't considered that. :( I think you might have to change the "subpixel order". In Gnome, that would be System->Preferences->Appearance->Fonts->Details-> probably VRGB. However, I just tried that on my desktop and I can't say I noticed a difference. Maybe it would be different if I had actually rotated the display, as well.

Added
You are right. I'll just leave now. ;)

No! Stay! :D you must experiment with us :p