Arch Linux

t3kka

Member

Registered: 2011-09-02

Posts: 5

[SOLVED] Multi-Monitor not working in i3

So despite my best efforts thus far, I cant seem to get my multi-monitor displays working properly in i3 under Archlinux. First, here's my current xrandar output:

 
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3600 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
HDMI-1 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 510mm x 287mm
       1920x1080     60.00*+
       1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
       1152x864      75.00  
       1024x768      75.08    60.00  
       800x600       75.00    60.32  
       640x480       75.00    60.00  
       720x400       70.08  
VGA-0 connected 1680x1050+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 474mm x 296mm
       1680x1050     59.95*+
       1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
       1152x864      75.00  
       1024x768      75.08    60.00  
       800x600       75.00    60.32  
       640x480       75.00    60.00  
       720x400       70.08  
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DisplayPort-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DisplayPort-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

I've configured /etc/X11/xorg.conf to include basic entries for both "VGA-0" and "HDMI-1"...

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"HDMI-1"
	Option		"Primary"	"true"
	Option		"PreferredMode"	"1920x1080"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"VGA-0"
	Option		"RightOf"	"VGA0"
	Option		"PreferredMode"	"1680x1050"
EndSection

Now when I start i3, both monitors are enabled but they are in 'mirrored' mode which obviously doesn't help me too much. I've tried adding workspace 1 output HDMI-1 and workspace 2 output VGA-0 to the ~/.i3/config file but still no go. My desired experience is to have a workspace defined on each monitor and see each of those individual workspaces at the same time (so workspace 1 on HDMI-1 and workspace 2 on VGA-0).

Any assistance ya'll can provide is greatly appreciated. On a side note, I also have XFCE4 installed as I was playing around with that first and while it doesn't have different workspaces for each monitor, it successfully allows the 'extended desktop' experience across the two displays.

EDIT: Is it possible that XFCE is causing some oddities? I also noticed that when I have XFCE4 installed that when I start i3 via startx it appears to use some graphics of XFCE4 (and potentially other stuff) instead of the default i3 look which I experienced when testing it in a VM (vm was a bare arch install with just i3 and its relevant requirements...no multi-display setup in the VM tho).

Last edited by t3kka (2015-09-09 17:06:00)

fl0rian

Member

Registered: 2015-09-09

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Multi-Monitor not working in i3

you can set the position of the output with xrandr, so for example you can use

xrandr --output VGA-0 --pos 1920x0

or

xrandr --output VGA-0 --right-of HDMI-1

to set the VGA screen to the right of the HDMI screen.

On my brothers dual-monitor-setup I had to add the xrandr position command to the startup script of the Login Manager so it takes effect every time you reboot.

fl0rian

Member

Registered: 2015-09-09

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Multi-Monitor not working in i3

and to make it work with the xorg.conf file you should probably change

Option "RightOf" "VGA0"

to

Option "RightOf" "HDMI-1"

If this option is as intuitive as it seems it doesn't make much sense to set VGA's output to the right of itself with a missing "-", does it?

t3kka

Member

Registered: 2011-09-02

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Multi-Monitor not working in i3

and to make it work with the xorg.conf file you should probably change

Option "RightOf" "VGA0"

to

Option "RightOf" "HDMI-1"

If this option is as intuitive as it seems it doesn't make much sense to set VGA's output to the right of itself with a missing "-", does it?

Yikes...that was a stupid mistake on my part   BUT your recommendations have solved the issue! I updated the .i3/config file to exec the xrandr commands on startup and it now appears to be working! Workspaces are in their respective monitors and both resolutions are at their desired level.  Really appreciate it!!

Now begins the task of making it pretty.