Desktop on external monitor
 

Hi,

I have a 12" Averatec 3715-EH1 laptop, and would like to be able to use a larger monitor as my primary desktop. I have plugged a 17" LCD into the 15-pin VGA-out port, but all I can get in Linux (Kubuntu Breezy) is a cloned 1024x768 resolution. In XP, I can change the external monitor to a higher resolution, but cannot make it my primary desktop (all of my programs start on the small laptop LCD, and I have to move them to the external monitor). The checkbox that says "use this monitor as my primary desktop" is greyed out. Here's what I would like to have happen: I would like to be able to plug the external monitor into my laptop and use it as my primary desktop, so that the kicker, taskbar, and all of my programs are on the external monitor my default, rather than having to drag them over. It would be great if I could run separate desktops on each monitor, but not necessary. Is there any way I can do this in Linux? Any links to external monitor HOW-TOs or FAQs would be helpful as well.

Thanks for your help,

--D

You need to setup either dual-head (separate desktops) or xinerama (both monitors combined into a single desktop).

The xinerama howto is here http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Xinerama-HOWTO/index.html, it's a few years old, but I don't think there have been any substantial changes in how to set it up.

Basically, just set up another monitor, device, and screen section in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
The primary head is determined by which screen you specify as screen 0 in the server layout. So, you'd have something like

Screen 0 "external" 0 0
Screen 1 "lcd" leftOf "external"