Failed to output screen to external monitor in rhel 5.8
 

my xrandr output is:

SZ: Pixels Physical Refresh
*0 1920 x 1080 ( 341mm x 191mm ) *70
Current rotation - normal
Current reflection - none
Rotations possible - normal
Reflections possible - none

it didn't show VGA or HDMI option from the xrandr command.

And my xorg.conf file shows:

[root@localhost ~]# more /etc/X11/xorg.conf
# Xorg configuration created by system-config-display

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
Identifier "Monitor0"
ModelName "Samsung SyncMaster 226BW (Analog)"
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

A few things:

• Read the "Question Guidelines" link in my posting signature. We're happy to help, but you provide next to no details that would let anyone even GUESS as to a possible soltuion. You don't tell us what kind of hardware, or even what the actual problem is. Do you have display at all? Was this ever working? New problem? New hardware? Anything???
• You're using a VERY old version of Red Hat Enterprise...why? RHEL isn't designed for workstations, but for servers. And they may not even have a graphics card on them, so graphics support may be spotty.
• RHEL is **NOT FREE**...while you may use it, you DO NOT get patches/updates/fixes that address such problems. I would ask if you're paying for RHEL, but since 5.8 is not even remotely supported any longer, you are not. Load the latest version of CentOS instead, if you *NEED* a server-class distro. Otherwise, pretty much any other version of Linux would be better for graphic support. Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, openSUSE, Debian..all will pretty much 'just work', and are going to be up to date.

" Device "Videocard0" "

what is the video card on this antique machine

also BE AWARE that redhat no longer supports 5.8
and for 5.9 you NEED to but a extra extended support contract that may have already expired

Thanks for suggestion, actually I began with installation of Centos linux but it failed to installed on my dell latitude E6540 so i switched to redhat,
I am going to try external monitor on rhel 6.4, if not work, probably I will switch to ubuntu. I will post any problem i got.

???
why ???? 6.4 ?????

the current in the redhat 6 series is 6.9
with rhel7.4 the current

so WHY a old and unsupported version of redhat ?

yeah , just upgraded to 6.9 as you suggested, and my latitude starts to see VGA monitors!! it detected automatically, for two different brand monitors( Samsung and Acer)

But it fails to detect monitors thru HDMI connections, when i type xrandr, HDMI session said "disconnected", what else I can do to proceed HDMI detection? Tahnks

first of all, this dell latitude is not ancient:
https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/la...latitude-e6540
and there's no reason you couldn't install a current distro.
but maybe the old gnome desktop still supported by centos (and i guess redhat too) is lighter & thus better.
but that is beside the point.

please post the output of

The output shows as follows

[root@Desktop]# lspci -k |grep -iEA5 'vga|3d|display'
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
Subsystem: Dell Device 05be
Kernel driver in use: i915
Kernel modules: i915
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller (rev 06)
Subsystem: Dell Device 05be
--
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Mars XTX [Radeon HD 8790M]
Subsystem: Dell Device 05be
Kernel driver in use: radeon
Kernel modules: radeon
03:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1506 WLAN Half Mini-Card

Ok, did you read my first reply at all???? Where I said you shouldn't use an old version and to update? Or to (better) use something else?

RHEL is **NOT** a good distro for a laptop/consumer hardware. AGAIN: graphics support may be spotty, especially for such things like HDMI and the like. While you MAY be able to get them working, it may not be easy. And AGAIN: while RHEL may be free to use, it isn't a good idea; having an unpatched/unupdated/insecure system (since you won't get ANY of those things without paying RHEL for a subscription). I suggested the latest version of Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, openSUSE, or Debian...ANY of those will give you far better results.

If you ask for advice from folks and not take it...why bother asking? If you're going to use RHEL, then pay for it and contact Red Hat, and they will help you work through your issues.

Seen the following comment on redhat website, went ahead to change BIOS setting, and now my laptop starts to detect HDMI !!

"On dual-GPU laptops, if one of the graphics chips is Intel-based, the Intel graphics mode cannot drive any external digital connections (including HDMI, DVI, and DisplayPort). This is a hardware limitation of the Intel GPU. If you require external digital connections, configure the system to use the discrete graphics chip (in the BIOS)."

please mark your thread solved.