Karmic dual monitors now assigns second monitor as primary

[shakeyB]

Hi

Jaunty set up my dual monitors out of the box without me having to lift a finger.

In Karmic my second (vga) monitor is assigned as the primary with the launch bar and dock appearing there, which is a little annoying as i have to keep both monitors on even if I only need one.

Anyone know what has changed between releases to cause this and know how I can solve it?

I've seen similar problems listed for nvidia cards, the solution was to issue twinview specific commands in xorg.conf to assign the primary monitor to the dvi output. Anyone know if a way i can do this for ati?

I tried installing fglrx and the proprietry drivers from the ati site, both resulted in blank screens after login.

lspci | grep VGA

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV535 [Radeon X1650 Series] (rev 9e)

[asimong]

I am also disappointed. Jaunty worked just fine, but now having installed Karmic, not only has my dual screen setup been forgotten, but "Configure Display Settings" does not do what it should do. Not as if I'm using any different hardware -- nothing has changed on that front. I seem to be stuck with mirrored screens.

[seventeener]

Hi, I use Samsung NC10 and sometimes plug an external monitor for a dual-monitor setup. After an upgrade to Karmic my monitor switching scripts stopped working. Luckily, the fix was easy. First of all, correct names of outputs in the xrandr command, i.e. VGA to VGA1 and LVDS to LVDS1. Second, explicitly choose the external monitor as the primary one (see below).
For dual-monitor with the external as the primary one:

xrandr --output VGA1 --primary
xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --pos 0x0 --output LVDS1 --auto --below VGA1

For going back to the laptop screen only:

xrandr --output VGA1 --off --output LVDS1 --auto

For convenience I run these commands in scripts with assigned keyboard shortcuts (see how to assign shortcuts here).

[edwardmccaughan]

Thanks seventeener!

I was wondering how to do exactly that!

[kdford]

Thanks for the instructions. This worked PERFECTLY for me.

[frozenfyer]

I had a similar problem with my dual monitor setup that I solved. One screen was connected to DVI and the other to VGA. Use the following to figure out what each screen is called:

xrandr --prop

You should see something like VGA-1 or DVI-D-1. Do the following to set the primary screen:

xrandr --output DVI-D-1 --primary

Replacing DVI-D-1 with whichever screen you want as the primary.

[brycenesbitt]

Thanks, the solution is great. Putting this in the monitor control panel is a registered idea here: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/17526/ and can be voted for.

[oldmankit]

Hi, I use Samsung NC10 and sometimes plug an external monitor for a dual-monitor setup. After an upgrade to Karmic my monitor switching scripts stopped working. Luckily, the fix was easy. First of all, correct names of outputs in the xrandr command, i.e. VGA to VGA1 and LVDS to LVDS1. Second, explicitly choose the external monitor as the primary one (see below).
For dual-monitor with the external as the primary one:

xrandr --output VGA1 --primary
xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --pos 0x0 --output LVDS1 --auto --below VGA1

For going back to the laptop screen only:

xrandr --output VGA1 --off --output LVDS1 --auto

For convenience I run these commands in scripts with assigned keyboard shortcuts (see how to assign shortcuts here).

That worked fine for me in Maverick. Thanks!

[GT-Force]

How can one make this permanent. After I execute this, it works, but after logging out and back in, it's back to how it was.

Until Ubuntu coders pull their heads out of their, ummm, ASCII terminals and see that at least 98% of computer users use GUI and put this into the monitor setup, we'll have to do it the hard way.

[adduds]

Hi, I use Samsung NC10 and sometimes plug an external monitor for a dual-monitor setup. After an upgrade to Karmic my monitor switching scripts stopped working. Luckily, the fix was easy. First of all, correct names of outputs in the xrandr command, i.e. VGA to VGA1 and LVDS to LVDS1. Second, explicitly choose the external monitor as the primary one (see below).
For dual-monitor with the external as the primary one:

xrandr --output VGA1 --primary
xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --pos 0x0 --output LVDS1 --auto --below VGA1

For going back to the laptop screen only:

xrandr --output VGA1 --off --output LVDS1 --auto

For convenience I run these commands in scripts with assigned keyboard shortcuts (see how to assign shortcuts here).

good on ya mate wrote my scripts worked great

also promoted the solution to this problem on ubuntu brain storm

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/17526/