Hi guys,
A couple of weeks ago I bought a Lenovo T61 Thinkpad with the Intel GM965 graphics card. It came with S.L.E.D. 10, but I had my eye set on kubuntu. The one piece of functionality that was missing was dual-head capability After some investigation and trial-and-error, I came out with a workable solution.
I have a samsung syncmaster 205BW as my external monitor and wanted the ability to display code on one screen and output on another. This was especially critical since the T61 is smaller than my Inspiron 9300. Using the external monitor would allow me to have as much screen real estate as I want, while having a more portable laptop.
I was disappointed that kubuntu's System Settings...Monitor and Display configuration tool only screwed up my xorg.conf file and left me with no monitors. I ended up editing the xorg.conf file by hand to get the desired results.
This website helped a lot:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Xorg_RandR_1.2
Hopefully this post will be helpful to anyone else trying to set up dual-head functionality. I am still trying to get the DRI working well enough to make compiz look snappy and run flightgear.
The commands I use to switch around configurations are:
mirror the display:
xrandr --output LVDS --auto --output VGA --auto --same-as LVDS
dual head:
xrandr --output VGA --auto --left-of LVDS
turn off the external monitor feed:
xrandr --output VGA --off
My xorg.conf file is:
PHP Code:
# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "0"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Option "DPMS"
Identifier "Samsung205BW"
Vendorname "Samsung"
Modelname "SyncMaster 205BW"
Horizsync 31.4 - 80.0
Vertrefresh 56.000 - 75.000
modeline "1680x1050" 146.25 1680 1784 1960 2240 1050 1053 1059 1089
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "Configured Monitor"
Device "Configured Video Device"
SubSection "Display"
#Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
# ADD A VIRTUAL LINE TO PROVIDE FOR THE LARGEST SCREENS YOU WILL HOTPLUG
Virtual 3360 1050
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Synaptics Touchpad"
EndSection