i915GM (i810) resolution with external monitor without Xinerama or Clone
 

Ahoi!

I would like to ask you why X.org/i810 can't handle an external monitor with internal monitor turned off, but in a higher resolution.

FS Amilo M7440 i915GM 1024x768
Samsung SyncMaster 930BF 1280x1024

The well-known problem is that Xinerama turns off DRI support. So I figured that without having two displays concurrently, I'd rather have only one. External monitor when I'm home, internal when I'm away.

But whatever I write in xorg.conf (Monitor details to support high-res, Screen details to support high-res, but start with a low-res), during the bootup process of Xorg the program realizes that it has an internal monitor and drops 1280x1024 options. Perhaps because it sees both monitors in the same Pipe B, instead of two different A and B pipes, for which I have no sufficient knowledge to change.

Currently I'm using a script which changes the target of the symlink /etc/X11/xorg.conf whether I want single or dualhead.
xorg.conf -> xorg-single.conf (Single device, single monitor, single screen)
xorg.conf -> xorg.dual.conf (Xinerama and Clone)

I hope I could use the same approach to have only-internal and only-external state for my Xorg, but I just don't know how, because 99% of the hits in Google try to solve "clone mode" problems, or "extended desktop" problem.

I'm also unable to comprehend why Xorg states that there is no device at PCI:0:2:1 when there is if I look for it in /proc/bus... and there is also such a device according to Intel (http://www.intel.com/support/graphic.../CS-020154.htm)

Can you help me?

Solution external monitor with different resolution than internal (which is off)
 

Well, since you too seem uncertain, I shall tell you a partial solution I was able to figure out tonight.

First of all I updated my FC5 to FC6, so I'd have Xorg 7.1 and better i810/intel drivers. the "intel" driver found I to be worthless.

Then I created an erroneous xorg.config, so it offered me to set up a new one. (I did it accidentally)

Despite the resultless tries I had done, this time I tried to fool the X.org to think I have a 1280x1024 laptop with i810 chipset in it.

X.org restarted, and voilá, there I had 1280x1024 on my external, while internal was turned off

Reboot to check if it lasts, but it didn't. I figured out, that if I turn off my internal monitor, than X.org will in fact allow 1280x1024. However turning off the internal is not always as easy as it sounds, for when I ctrl-alt-backspace it always turns back on.

So it is possible, but not straightforward. One possible solutions I found:

1.
boots into 1024
ctrl-alt-f1 to console and login as root
init 3
turn off laptop monitor (in my case Fn-F3)
init 5

also there are other solutions because I could also found them, just I don't know which part of my hectic command-line vomiting did the trick.

Have a nice day there fellas!

+ 1:
I figured that if I successfully turn off the internal monitor with Fn+F3 before X initializes, than it will have the correct resolution for the external monitor.

Hi,

I have a samilar problem, whats the status of your efforts?

Cheers,
loony

Is this 'well known problem' specific to laptops? I wasn't aware of this, and I disagree too, at least for desktop machines.. Correct me if I misunderstood. look :) :
Here's my xorg.conf (just a piece of it) which shows where it uses Xinerama:
So.. As much as I would like to have a laptop, I haven't one yet :p so again please correct me if I'm wrong, or if this is a laptop specific issue. I also ask/suggest, If you are having issues still with the video outputs, I wonder if it might be a limitation of using the onboard Intel Video device... Is it possible to put video cards into laptops? I have an onboard Intel device on my desktop system, and it is next to useless :p.
Sasha

It depends on the chipset and available memory for the video. Many notebooks have shared video memory.