My Samsung laptop has a 1024x768 resolution, and attached to it is a 23" LG monitor set to a resolution of 1920x1080. I do NOT have the "same image in all monitors" option checked in Monitor Preferences.

When I turn the machine on everything is displayed properly for 5 to 10 seconds, then the LG screen is automatically reset down to 1024x768, and a checkmark appears in the “Same image in all monitors” preferences box. Sometimes I have to reboot more than once before I'm able to manually set the LG screen properly.


I brought this up a while ago and someone suggested setting the resolutions with "xrandr" on startup. They gave these examples, but without any details on how to do all this:

xrandr --output VGA1 --auto
xrandr --output LVDS1 --off --output VGA1 --mode 1152x864
xrandr --output LVDS1--off --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024


I’ve spent a LOT of time trying to figure it out. I still don’t really understand what “xrandr” is, but I gather that the xrandr lines are supposed to be put in an “init” file. I assume the “init” file is invoked when you turn the machine on. (Though I also found a page on the LinuxQuestions site that said the “init” file is often not read at startup in version 10.04, which makes me wonder about this whole process.)

In any case, I haven't been able to get the "init" file to save anything that I add to it -- so of course I don't really know if I'm putting in the right lines.


Does anyone have any idea on some other approach to this problem? -- possibly one that doesn't assume the user is a programmer? It’s very common for people with laptops to connect them to larger screens. Surely there’s an efficient way to make that work! Thanks for your help.

kentfx

have you the 2 monitors separately configured in /etc/X11/xorg.conf?
There is 2 ways of going at this, iirc.
1. You have the same screen (sort of) in each monitor.
2. One is 'left' and one is 'right'

Plenty of specialist sites, howtos and allsorts out there on google.