Arch Linux

ashan

Member

Registered: 2016-11-13

Posts: 2

SDDM external default monitor

I have Arch installed on a laptop with an external monitor. With SDDM as my display manager, I'd like the external monitor to be the "default" when the laptop lid is closed. Digging through the config files, I see no way of defining the external monitor as default using SDDM. Is this even possible?

I almost never use the laptop screen itself, so solutions which break using it are acceptable. 99.9% of the time I use my laptop as a desktop with external monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

Thanks

karlospv94

Member

Registered: 2016-10-12

Posts: 100

Re: SDDM external default monitor

You can create a xorg config file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d to have the connected monitor as Primary one:

➜ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf                                          
Section "Monitor"
  Identifier  "eDP-1"
  Option      "LeftOf" "HDMI-1"
  Option      "Ignore" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
  Identifier  "HDMI-1"
  VendorName  "LG"
  ModelName "24UD58"
  Option  "RightOf" "eDP-1"
  Option  "DPMS" "true"
  Option  "Primary" "true"
EndSection

In my case the HDMI-1 is the name of the connected monitor (marked as Primary) so when I power on the laptop I only work with the HDMI monitor.