Dual Monitor Selection at boot
 

THIS MAY BE COVERED SOMEWHERE, BUT SEARCH DOESN'T APPEAR TO BE WORKING


I have SuSE 10 running on my thinkpad. At home I would like to use dual monitor, at work just the laptop's LCD. Dual monitors ARE working, but switching between the two configurations requires a restart of X (login where ever I am, turn on/off dual monitors, restart X, proceed to work). Is there a way to configure this BEFORE X is loaded, or at least before I login (at the login prompt perhaps)?

If so, how? If not, why not?

To compete with Windows, Linux would need to detect the monitor (it doesn't appear to) and turn on the option, or detect that it isn't there and turn it off.

If you have not edited the default, Suse boots into GUI mode (runlevel 5, if I'm not mistaken on Suse). When you log in (KDM), X is already started.

I know of no automated method. Here is an option for you - but you would have to boot to the CLI, not KDM.

Change the default runlevel to 3 (? I think 3 in suse... maybe 4, but it'll say in your /etc/inittab, or YAST - whichever method you choose to change it.)
Anyway, boot to the CLI & log in.

Configure /etc/X11/xorg.conf to have 2 different "layouts"
The defualt single monitor layout looks similar to this:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Simple"
Screen "Screen 1"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Then add an additional layout... maybe something like this?:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Multihead"
Screen "Screen 1" LeftOf "Screen 2"
Screen "Screen 2"
Option "Xinerama" "true"
InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"
InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

So, now (if all is well) you can either type:
startx -- -layout Simple
OR
startx -- -layout Multihead


To make it really easy for yourself, add these lines to your .bash_profile (found in your /home/USER_NAME/ directory:

# for starting X with 1 monitor
alias s1='startx -- -layout Simple '
# for starting X with dual monitors
alias s2='startx -- -layout Multihead '

Then, all you have to do is type either s1 or s2... But of course you can name them whatever you want.


Yeah... I know this probably deviates from the Suse standard way of doing things, but..... it's how I'd do it. Take or leave the idea. I had some time to kill waiting for something, so I wrote it all out.

Good luck
-tw


<EDITED>
OK... I don't want to start a war of words... But the day linux becomes like windows, I'll have to find a new OS...
Compete for market share? OK
Compete for being similar? hummm....

I appreciate it and will certainly look into doing this. If I figure out how to edit the menus in KDM/GDM I would think I could include an X restart in the conf change...?


Microsoft hasn't spent billions of dollars, over the years, studying users of their products for nothing. Why try re-inventing the wheel? Benefit from those who came before ya, I always say.

That said, I was referring to competing for market share (and only out of frustration <g>). If Linux is to attract greater numbers of users it has to become more user friendly, and if not that then at least a little more automated. Many of the new distributions have come a LONG way since I first tried Linux out (just 5 or 6 years ago), but they still have a LONG way to go. This issue, switching between monitor configurations, was working in Windows over 5 or 6 years ago. There's plug-and-play support in Linux now but it doesn't appear to be fully implemented...some day.

Oh, and we won't get the driver support we want until we have the market share to demand it - and drivers HAVE to be Linux's Achilles heal right now.

At any rate, again, thanks. Eventually I'll have it configured just how I like it and will need to upgrade again. :)