F12 Bug 540584 recrudesces -- Second Update : Surprise!

[Tom Horsley]

On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:38:29 +0000 (UTC)
BeartoothHOS wrote:

> 	The present situation is just like the one, several releases 
> back, after installing or updating a release. Each machine had to have a 
> direct connection, free of the KVM switch, to autoconfigure X.

I have to have my KVM switch switched to the machine I am booting,
or it won't see the monitor EDID info, and defaults to something
annoying like 800x600. I also had to invent the xdbusd program
to restore my mouse/keyboard xinput settings after switching
back (http://home.comcast.net/~tomhorsley/software/xdbusd/xdbusd.html).

This is, however, absolutely the only KVM switch I've ever had
which mostly worked. This is an IOGEAR 4 port DVI/USB switch
(which I think is really made by ATEN), and it works flawlessly.
I have previously had Belkin switches which were absolutely horrible.
They wouldn't pass through EDID info, they would screw up the
mouse every time you disconnect, etc. There apparently is a wide
variety of things KVM switches can screw up (and it seems like such
a simple idea :-).

I do wish there was a universal way to make X believe it should
run at a particular resolution, but it is so convinced it is
perfect now that it is near impossible to get it to ignore bad
monitor info. Some individual drivers have things like IgnoreEDID
options you can set and specify a mode line instead, but it
seems to be case by case depending on the driver.