Rotate screen?

[Colin Paul Adams]

Is it possible to rotate the GNOME desktop through 90 degress
(portrait mode)?

[Peter Gordon]

On Sat, 2008-02-02 at 07:51 +0000, Colin Paul Adams wrote:
> Is it possible to rotate the GNOME desktop through 90 degress
> (portrait mode)?

It is, and depending on the video card and driver you are using, should
be relatively simple.

Open the "System" main menu, then go to Preferences --> Hardware -->
Screen Resolution.  From there you can choose the Rotation of your
choice.

I don't know for sure which video card/driver combinations support it
and which do not; but my testing is successful with my own workstation
(G965 video using the current xorg-x11-drv-intel stack).

Alternatively, you can use the 'xrandr' tool from the command-line if
you prefer that method. Check it's documentation for more details
(`xrandr --help` or `man xrandr` from the terminal).

Hope that helps.

[Colin Paul Adams]

> > > > > "Peter" == Peter Gordon  writes:

Peter> On Sat, 2008-02-02 at 07:51 +0000, Colin Paul Adams wrote:
    >> Is it possible to rotate the GNOME desktop through 90 degress
    >> (portrait mode)?

Peter> It is, and depending on the video card and driver you are
    Peter> using, should be relatively simple.

Peter> Open the "System" main menu, then go to Preferences -->
    Peter> Hardware --> Screen Resolution.  From there you can choose
    Peter> the Rotation of your choice.

Thanks.

But when i do that, I see the screen resolution drop-down is
greyed-out on Normal.

My screen is connected with a VGA cable - would a DVI cable make a
difference?

My hardware (according to X11) is:

(II) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA GPU Quadro FX 1700 (G84GL) at PCI:8:0:0 (GPU-0)

My xorg.conf looks like this:

# Xorg configuration created by livna-config-display

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

Section "Files"
        ModulePath   "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
        ModulePath   "/usr/lib64/xorg/modules"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
        Option      "AIGLX" "on"
EndSection

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

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "Monitor0"
        ModelName    "LCD Panel 1680x1050"
        HorizSync    31.5 - 65.5
        VertRefresh  56.0 - 65.0
        Option      "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "nvidia"
        Option      "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
EndSection

[Peter Gordon]

Hmm.

I did a Google search for this and it seems you need to add the
RandRRotation option to your xorg.conf video section:

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "nvidia"
        Option      "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
    Option      "RandRRotation" "on"
EndSection

However, I have little experience with XRandR (which is the extension
that allows this), and even less with Nvidia cards. So I'm afraid I
can't be of much further help, sorry. :|

Hope that's at least a shove in the right direction.

[Peter Gordon]

On Sat, 2008-02-02 at 00:27 -0800, Peter Gordon wrote:
> Hmm.
>
> I did a Google search for this and it seems you need to add the
> RandRRotation option to your xorg.conf video section:

Just a note: I found that by searching for "nvidia xrandr."

It was mentioned in chapter 17 of the README:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/171.05/README/README.txt

[Colin Paul Adams]

> > > > > "Peter" == Peter Gordon  writes:

Peter> Hmm.  I did a Google search for this and it seems you need
    Peter> to add the RandRRotation option to your xorg.conf video
    Peter> section:

Peter> Section "Device" Identifier "Videocard0" Driver "nvidia"
    Peter> Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True" Option "RandRRotation"
    Peter> "on" EndSection

Peter> However, I have little experience with XRandR (which is the
    Peter> extension that allows this), and even less with Nvidia
    Peter> cards. So I'm afraid I can't be of much further help,
    Peter> sorry. :|

No need - that was all it took - it works.

Thanks a lot.

[John Summerfield]

Colin Paul Adams wrote:
> > > > > > "Peter" == Peter Gordon  writes:
> Peter> On Sat, 2008-02-02 at 07:51 +0000, Colin Paul Adams wrote:
> >> Is it possible to rotate the GNOME desktop through 90 degress
> >> (portrait mode)?
>
> Peter> It is, and depending on the video card and driver you are
> Peter> using, should be relatively simple.
>
> Peter> Open the "System" main menu, then go to Preferences -->
> Peter> Hardware --> Screen Resolution.  From there you can choose
> Peter> the Rotation of your choice.
>
> Thanks.
>
> But when i do that, I see the screen resolution drop-down is
> greyed-out on Normal.
>
> My screen is connected with a VGA cable - would a DVI cable make a
> difference?

It worked for me with a VGA cable; my graphics is VGA-only.

[John Summerfield]

Colin Paul Adams wrote:
> Is it possible to rotate the GNOME desktop through 90 degress
> (portrait mode)?

Google  found me a command to use which I'm sure doesn't rely on KDE or 
Gnome.

I did it two or three times, then decided that as the Linux console 
doesn't rotate it wasn't all that useful to me.