I have an HP laptop w/ an Intel chipset and am trying to clone the laptop display to an external lcd but not having luck. I want it to appear exactly as is (task bar etc) but with the obviously different resolution, can anyone point me to a doc that suggests this config versus that of extending etc?
Thanks! jlc
On Tuesday 01 December 2009 23:10:05 Joseph L. Casale wrote:
I have an HP laptop w/ an Intel chipset and am trying to clone the laptop display to an external lcd but not having luck. I want it to appear exactly as is (task bar etc) but with the obviously different resolution,
^^^^^^^^^
Well, what is *obvious* (to me, at least) is that it is *impossible* to clone LVDS and VGA outputs while having them with different resolutions, at the same time. I mean, "cloning" means "making them identical", resolution included. :-)
What you *can* do is to make them both have the same resolution, and X can do this for you, by choosing the highest resolution common to both VGA and LVDS. However, don't be surprised if that turns out to be 1024x768 or even 800x600.
can anyone point me to a doc that suggests this config versus that of extending etc?
man xrandr
I have a VGA panel with native 1680x1050, a LVDS with 1280x800, and the biggest common resolution turns out to be 1024x768, which looks very ugly on both displays. So when I am connected to VGA, I prefer to shut down the LVDS and work in panel's native 1680x1050. The simplest way to do this is to execute
xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --output LVDS1 --off
(I have a script taking care of it, autodetecting the presence of VGA panel, etc...). You can read the man page for xrandr and fiddle with various setups.
The other possibility is to have two *different* outputs (not cloned, but adjacent, as is being setup as default in F12), and setup the user interface of your DE to look the same. If you use KDE, it is easy, just add appropriate widgets (panel and all) on the VGA display, set up a background, etc. I don't know about Gnome and other DE's, but I guess it's possible there, too.
HTH, :-) Marko
What you *can* do is to make them both have the same resolution, and X can do this for you, by choosing the highest resolution common to both VGA and LVDS. However, don't be surprised if that turns out to be 1024x768 or even 800x600.
Ughh, that's sad:)
The other possibility is to have two *different* outputs (not cloned, but adjacent, as is being setup as default in F12), and setup the user interface of your DE to look the same. If you use KDE, it is >easy, just add appropriate widgets (panel and all) on the VGA display, set up a background, etc. I don't know about Gnome and other DE's, but I guess it's possible there, too.
Well that does help, but it's unfortunate, I have done this in windows for eons...
Is it possible to create the default whereby the builtin LVD is then turned off if the external LVD or VGA is connected? This would accomplish what I need equally well.
Thanks for the informative reply, jlc
On Wednesday 02 December 2009 05:42:28 Joseph L. Casale wrote:
Is it possible to create the default whereby the builtin LVD is then turned off if the external LVD or VGA is connected? This would accomplish what I need equally well.
This little script does exactly that, for me:
#! /bin/bash if xrandr | grep "VGA1 connected"; then xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --output LVDS1 --off ; fi exit
Put it somewhere to run automatically upon login (I have it in KDE's Autostart configuration), and you're done. However, if you connect VGA after login, you need to execute the script manually. If something doesn't work, look at the output of "xrandr" in the terminal, maybe your devices have different names.
And of course, you need to do
xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --output VGA1 --off
before you disconnect VGA, if you don't plan to reboot the machine.
HTH, :-) Marko
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Joseph L. Casale -
Marko Vojinovic