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Old 12-21-2004, 08:45 AM   #1
vern518
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External Monitor detection from laptop


I have a laptop that during bootup will detect an external monitor and work with no problem, but when hooked up to a system of switches defaults to an incorrect monitor setting. Is there an easy way to put in default monitor settings and shut off monitor detection? I have attempted to edit the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file and had no luck.
 
Old 12-21-2004, 02:50 PM   #2
jollyjoice
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what distro are you using?
 
Old 01-04-2005, 11:05 AM   #3
vern518
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Distro 8

We are using distrobution 8.
 
Old 01-06-2005, 07:36 AM   #4
basileus
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An easy way to fix this would be to start X from command line, with two different layouts. If you want to use graphical login, I suppose you need some program that will detect the monitor and start X with appropriate configuration, or alternatively make my check (below) before starting any display manager.

Anyways, my solution, which I had to apply to my laptop:

1) Make runlevel 3 the default in /etc/inittab, and if necessary, remove startup links to xdm, gdm or kdm from /etc/rc3.d (in debian). They are names like S99xdm or similar.

2) Add new monitor section to the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 for the external monitor
3) Add new layout section to the same file, which uses external monitor
4) Start X with following commands, depending which monitor you want to use:

startx -- -layout your_internal_layout
startx -- -layout your_external_layout

You can edit the file .bash_profile in your homedir to ask which layout to use when you login:

echo "Is external monitor connected? (y/n)"
read yn

if [ "$yn" = "y" ]; then
startx -- -layout your_external_layout
else
startx -- -layout your_internal_layout
fi

That should work.
 
Old 01-19-2005, 02:04 PM   #5
vern518
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That helps alot, but I want it to always default to the same monitor, no matter what it is hooked up to. What file do I edit and how do I edit it to always come up with the same monitor? And can I keep it from trying to recognize any monitor? I want it to boot up and load the same monitor settings everytime, in other words. Where do I do that?

I only want to have the same settings for the same monitor for the EXTERNAL monitor. Without changing the default monitor settings.

THANK YOU!!

Last edited by vern518; 01-19-2005 at 02:05 PM.
 
  


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