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#1 2011-04-21 22:23:23

jwhendy
Member
Registered: 2010-04-01
Posts: 621

? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

Hi,


I recently got a new laptop for work that has an Nvidia Quadro 1800M. I have a docking station and an external monitor and would like to put them to use. Not sure that I'll always use them, but it'd be nice. I have several questions:

xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf
My understanding was that xorg.conf was essentially deprecated and that stuff should now be in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/. I've been trying to follow this protocol and haven't had a xorg.conf in many months. When trying to use nvidia-settings, I have not allowed it to save the file, but only set things how I want, then preview it and try to insert the relevant lines into 10-monitor.conf. But my attempts to get what I want by following either the Arch nvidia wiki, the Arch xorg wiki, the Gentoo dual monitor wiki, and the Gentoo nvidia/dual screen wiki have not yet been successful.

As a side note, the Arch nvidia page (favoring xorg.conf) and the Arch xorg page (favoring 10-monitor.conf) seem to conflict... If someone can answer some questions about the preference for one or the other, I can correct that problem.

Is any of this due to the fact that Nvidia somehow needs something in xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf?

The Hope
I'd prefer something equivalent to xrandr-ing to a projector rather than one huge desktop space, unless someone can convince me otherwise. I'd like this because I'm still not sure if I'll like using the monitor/docking station + keyboard/mouse or prefer to just use the laptop. I've kind of grown accustomed to a laptop and just am not sure I'll want to be on a monitor all the time.

But... I might really like the added real estate and definitely want it as an option for certain graphics projects and multiple document editing. Thus, it would be great if I could have it available.

TwinView sounds like you have to have the whole thing mapped as one ginormous screen all the time.

Dual screens kind of sounds like what I'd like if it's like the xrandr way (connect, and then use xrandr to set your options for the external display).

So far, I have not been able to get xrandr to show anything other than my internal display.

Here is my current /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf file. It's based on what nvidia-settings wanted to use for a dual screen setup:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier    "DualScreen"
    Screen         0    "Screen0" 0 0
    Screen         1  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
    Option        "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier         "Monitor0"
    ModelName    "LGD"
        HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
        VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
        Option             "DPMS"
    Option        "Enable" "True"

    Option        "Position" "0 0"
    Option        "PreferredMode" "1600x900"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor1"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "HP L1945w"
    HorizSync       24.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     50.0 - 76.0
EndSection


Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName       "Quadro FX 1800M"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen         0
EndSection



Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "Quadro FX 1800M"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen         1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    Option       "TwinView" "0"
    Option       "metamodes" "DFP-0: 1600x900 +0+0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    Modes        "1600x900"
    EndSubSection
    Option         "SLI" "Auto"
    Option         "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Device1"
    Monitor        "Monitor1"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Thanks for any help!

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#2 2011-04-22 23:42:27

Zoide
Member
Registered: 2011-04-21
Posts: 4

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

Hi,
I've taking my time to look at the specs of your graphic card. Very Impressive! cool

You have said at the beginning at your post that you have used nvidia-settings to configure in dual screens mode. I suspect when you have tried to copy it at etc/X11/xorg.conf, you were not in superuser mode. You have to open kwrite ou gedit like this: sudo gedit then enter your superuser password for open the program in superuser mode. Then, you have to open in it: xorg.conf and paste the preview you can see when you configure your vga card. Finally, you have to save the "new" xorg.conf. By the way, I suggest to make a backup of your initial xorg.conf before doing changes. wink

I use Arch for 2 years now, before it was Gentoo (way too hard to install and maintain) and I always use xorg.conf in dual screens setup (2 flat monitors in 1680X1050 each).

Good luck!

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#3 2011-04-23 03:11:18

jwhendy
Member
Registered: 2010-04-01
Posts: 621

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

@Zoide: I'm pretty familiar with editing configs and using sudo, so I don't think that's the problem. I guess there were three questions to my post:

1) Is there a way to get Arch to see the external monitor via the docking station and let me use xrandr for it?

2) If that's possible, what's wrong with my config up there, as it's definitely not working

3) What pros/cons exist for xorg.conf vs. having a bunch of ##-something.confs in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d. I don't understand why there seems to have been a shift away from a central xorg.conf file into separate files for all the devices/configs... but nvidia still wants to use a xorg.conf. On a related note, if I had everything nvidia wanted in 10-monitor.conf, would it not work specifically because nvidia relies on xorg.conf for some reason, or should 10-monitor.conf be just fine?


Thanks!
John

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#4 2011-04-23 07:00:48

hayaka
Member
Registered: 2011-04-23
Posts: 2

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

I have a docking station and an external monitor and would like to put them to use. Not sure that I'll always use them, but it'd be nice.

Since you're using the nvidia binary driver, have you thought about just using nvidia-settings to switch between one monitor and dual monitors? You can switch without restarting X.

If you need a command-line program to do the switching, you can use disper http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=23376.

For my setup, I go between single monitor vs dual monitor vs monitor+TV. I use disper to switch between the modes.

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#5 2011-04-24 02:59:19

jwhendy
Member
Registered: 2010-04-01
Posts: 621

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

@hayaka:

I could do that, but I didn't really like how it worked. First of all, I kept getting seg faults. Apparently one has to delete the nvidia_rc or whatever file it is that the settings program creates. Also, it wanted me to restart X to use a separate X screen and not twinview. I guess if I just use the nvidia-settings program all the time, it should work to do that. I didn't know if I liked the idea of one huge desktop vs. the experience of more or less separate screens, but I could give it a whirl.

I'll play with that next week an see what I think (on my work computer, so I don't have access to it right now).

What's the difference between dual monitor and monitor + TV?

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#6 2011-04-26 22:21:41

Zoide
Member
Registered: 2011-04-21
Posts: 4

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

Hi,

I've been thinking and searching about your problem.

I have a portable and at the moment I connect VGA cable to the external connection, I've the image at the external monitor. There is automatic.

It this a possibility that you have an option for automatic detection for external monitor in the bios of your portable?

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#7 2011-04-27 00:15:46

SS4
Member
From: !Rochford, Essex
Registered: 2010-12-05
Posts: 699

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

jwhendy wrote:

@hayaka:

I could do that, but I didn't really like how it worked. First of all, I kept getting seg faults. Apparently one has to delete the nvidia_rc or whatever file it is that the settings program creates. Also, it wanted me to restart X to use a separate X screen and not twinview. I guess if I just use the nvidia-settings program all the time, it should work to do that. I didn't know if I liked the idea of one huge desktop vs. the experience of more or less separate screens, but I could give it a whirl.

I'll play with that next week an see what I think (on my work computer, so I don't have access to it right now).

What's the difference between dual monitor and monitor + TV?

Don't be fooled. Twinview still gives you two distinct screens with their own resolution and wallpaper. The only thing it really does is to put them on a virtual screen the size of the sum of your screens.

Have you tried lxrandr?


Rauchen verboten

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#8 2011-04-27 02:01:48

jwhendy
Member
Registered: 2010-04-01
Posts: 621

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

@zoide: hmmm. I'll have to check the bios next time I reboot. I didn't think of that!

@SS4: that's good to know re. twinview. See my original post, though, concerning lxrandr. xrandr isn't even seeing the other monitor, which is what confuses me. nvidia-settings can see it... but xrandr does not. It only shows the available settings for my internal display. I've tried three configurations: docking station with HDMI, docking station with VGA, and direct connection to monitor via VGA. No luck with any of them. lxrandr is just a front-end for xrandr, so as long as xrandr comes up empty handed... that's that.

Any ideas on why it wouldn't see the external display but nvidia would?

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#9 2011-04-27 04:15:20

BurntSushi
Member
From: Massachusetts
Registered: 2009-06-28
Posts: 362
Website

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

Scrap xrandr, completely. If you're using the proprietary driver, then it only supports RandR 1.1---which is completely useless for multi monitor configuration.

Secondly, you need to be set straight on this "one big desktop" business. :-) Here's a brief breakdown:

Multiple *screens* - This is how you originally did multi monitors with X. Almost nobody does this anymore. It has the severe limitation of not allowing you to move windows from one monitor to the other (only your mouse can move). Moreover, you may have trouble finding support from window managers for this. This feature is what nVidia tries to do when you enable "separate X screens." It's quite likely that you don't want this.

Xinerama - This was the new and improved way of doing multiple monitors with X, and is what gives you "one big desktop." It is now deprecated and unless absolutely necessary, you shouldn't use it. It does not support any kind of graphics acceleration.

TwinView - This is nVidia's version of Xinerama. (Indeed, TwinView settings are reported through the Xinerama extension.) It will act nearly exactly like an Xinerama setup, except it has graphics acceleration and must be configured via the nVidia driver. (i.e., it cannot be enabled from a tool like xrandr.) It also only supports two screens.

xrandr - This is what all the cools kids use and is what should be used if available. However, users of the proprietary nvidia driver are excluded because only the RandR 1.1 protocol is supported. (RandR 1.4 will likely be made available in the next xorg release. nvidia is way behind.) You *may* use xrandr if you use the nouveau open source driver, but the performance won't be on par with nvidia's driver.

In sum, go with TwinView---it's probably what you want. Most civilized window managers support xinerama/randr, so the window manager ought to be behave as expected. (i.e., maximization occurs on one monitor only.) As another poster has mentioned in this thread, disper is your friend!

Depending upon your shell-fu, a probe of `disper -l`and `cat /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state` may help to automate things.


Education is favorable to liberty. Freedom can exist only in a society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito

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#10 2011-04-27 14:23:27

jwhendy
Member
Registered: 2010-04-01
Posts: 621

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

@BurntSushi: awesome post. Thanks so much! My comments:

- Multiple Screens: Fantastic -- so I don't have to worry about changing anything at all with respect to xorg.conf or 10-monitor.conf?

- Xinerama: also good news and I'd heard around that this was unfavored anyway.

- TwinView: good to know

- xrandr: I'm think I'm with you. When you prefaced your post with:
,---
| Scrap xrandr, completely.
`---

You only meant to do so because the nvidia driver doesn't have 1.4 support yet? If so, then, yes we're all good. I need to wait for nvidia to work with it? For the record, my 'xrandr --version' reports 1.3.4 at present, not 1.4. I have played around with nvidia-settings and it looks pretty good.

I just tried disper and that's definitely the ticket. Pretty darn awesome. I was able to do it with this:

$ disper -r 1600x900,1440x900 -d DFP-0,DFP-1 -t right -e

Hopefully that's right. I just read through the options and made my best stab at it, but it seemed to work on the first try and looked just like nvidia-settings did when I enabled TwinView.

For turning off the second display, I used this:

$ disper -r 1600x900 -d DFP-0 -s

But got this error:

cloning specified displays instead of selecting primary display only
unrecognised scaling value for DFP-0 from nvidia-settings: 131073

Did I do something wrong?

Thanks again; disper looks like the ticket, and thanks for all the clarification.

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#11 2011-04-27 17:19:43

BurntSushi
Member
From: Massachusetts
Registered: 2009-06-28
Posts: 362
Website

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

jwhendy wrote:

- Multiple Screens: Fantastic -- so I don't have to worry about changing anything at all with respect to xorg.conf or 10-monitor.conf?

Well, ideally, nvidia-settings will create some xorg.conf for you. If you're going the separate X screens route, the configuration will need to be in some xorg.con or 10-monitor.conf file. But again, this is completely and entirely separate from going the TwinView route. They are two completely different things. To be clear, going the TwinView route should not require any configuration at all, provided you run 'disper'. (If you don't want to run disper, you'll need to setup a default configuration in 10-monitor.conf.)

Separate X screens: configuration file editing (hopefully by nvidia-settings) is required. disper cannot be used here.

TwinView: configuration file editing is not required, but possible. disper can be used here.

jwhendy wrote:

You only meant to do so because the nvidia driver doesn't have 1.4 support yet? If so, then, yes we're all good. I need to wait for nvidia to work with it? For the record, my 'xrandr --version' reports 1.3.4 at present, not 1.4.

Well, I don't think any drivers are going to have 1.4 support yet. What I meant was that nvidia is stuck at 1.1 and 1.4 should be in the next xorg release---which is just emphasizing how far behind nvidia is. (And it is purposeful.)

That xrandr reports '1.3.4' just means that that is the version of the RandR protocol running on your machine---that does not mean that your driver supports that version. RandR 1.2 is where you'll find the multi-monitor goodies, but alas, nvidia only supports 1.1.

There has been nothing but some flippant rumors that nvidia will change this state of affairs, so waiting could mean a long time!

jwhendy wrote:

I just tried disper and that's definitely the ticket. Pretty darn awesome. I was able to do it with this:

$ disper -r 1600x900,1440x900 -d DFP-0,DFP-1 -t right -e

This looks okay---you can probably omit "-r 1600x900, 1440x900" assuming that those are the native resolutions detected by disper. That is, disper will pick the best resolution when you leave out the '-r' switch.

jwhendy wrote:

Hopefully that's right. I just read through the options and made my best stab at it, but it seemed to work on the first try and looked just like nvidia-settings did when I enabled TwinView.

Indeed! disper is meant to be a command line interface to manipulate settings that you could find in nvidia-settings with regards to the displays available. disper uses TwinView. (In fact, disper will *only* work when using the nvidia proprietary driver.)

jwhendy wrote:

For turning off the second display, I used this:

$ disper -r 1600x900 -d DFP-0 -s

But got this error:

cloning specified displays instead of selecting primary display only
unrecognised scaling value for DFP-0 from nvidia-settings: 131073

Did I do something wrong?

Hmm, what happens if you remove the '-r' option and just use `disper -d DFP-0 -s`? It works for me over here.

jwhendy wrote:

Thanks again; disper looks like the ticket, and thanks for all the clarification.

No problem. The state of affairs with multi-monitors is complex, and to make matters worse, the terminology is vague and often means different things depending upon context. :-(

Last edited by BurntSushi (2011-04-27 17:25:20)


Education is favorable to liberty. Freedom can exist only in a society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito

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#12 2011-04-27 18:05:49

jwhendy
Member
Registered: 2010-04-01
Posts: 621

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

BurntSushi wrote:

TwinView: configuration file editing is not required, but possible. disper can be used here.

Yes, this is what I was asking, and disper/not-messing-with-configs is my preferred route. Thanks for clarifying.

BurntSushi wrote:

What I meant was that nvidia is stuck at 1.1 and 1.4 should be in the next xorg release---which is just emphasizing how far behind nvidia is (And it is purposeful.) ... RandR 1.2 is where you'll find the multi-monitor goodies, but alas, nvidia only supports 1.1.

Gotcha.

BurntSushi wrote:

This looks okay---you can probably omit "-r 1600x900, 1440x900" assuming that those are the native resolutions detected by disper. That is, disper will pick the best resolution when you leave out the '-r' switch.

That makes sense, and when running 'disper -l', 1600x900 and 1440x900 are the highest resolutions listed for each respective display. I also tried it, and it works.

BurntSushi wrote:

Indeed! disper is meant to be a command line interface to manipulate settings that you could find in nvidia-settings with regards to the displays available. disper uses TwinView. (In fact, disper will *only* work when using the nvidia proprietary driver.)

Fantastic -- sounds great.

BurntSushi wrote:

Hmm, what happens if you remove the '-r' option and just use `disper -d DFP-0 -s`? It works for me over here.

No go. Actually, I just noticed that I get errors with the above as well, even though I experience no visible/noticeable issues/problems. In other words:

]$ disper -d DFP-0,DFP-1 -t right -e
unrecognised scaling value for DFP-0 from nvidia-settings: 131073

$ disper -d DFP-0 -s
cloning specified displays instead of selecting primary display only
unrecognised scaling value for DFP-0 from nvidia-settings: 131073

But other than the complaint, everything looks great with respect to the resolution, the monitor extending off the right of my primary display, and things returning to normal after the second command... so I don't know why the error is coming about. Oh, I guess there's one oddity: my tint2 clock appears all the way on the right of the secondary display, but nothing else related to tint2. Weird.

BurntSushi wrote:

No problem. The state of affairs with multi-monitors is complex, and to make matters worse, the terminology is vague and often means different things depending upon context. :-(

Indeed. Thanks again for working through things with me.

Last edited by jwhendy (2011-04-27 18:08:07)

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#13 2011-04-27 18:36:14

Awebb
Member
Registered: 2010-05-06
Posts: 6,272

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

I'll simply post my files in xorg.conf.d. It works for me, maybe that helps:

(evdev is vanilla)

# 20-nvidia.conf 
Section "Device"
        Identifier "Default nvidia Device"
        Driver "nvidia"
        Option "NoLogo" "False"
        Option "DPMS" "True"
EndSection
#10-monitor.conf 
Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "DualSreen"
    Screen       0 "Screen0"
    Screen       1 "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0" #Screen1 at the right of Screen0
    Option         "Xinerama" "0" #To move windows between screens
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    Option         "Enable" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor1"
    Option         "Enable" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    Screen         0
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    Screen         1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "1"
#    SubSection "Display"
#        Depth          24
#        Modes          "1366x786_60.00"
#    EndSubSection
    Option "metamodes" "1366x768,1366x768; NULL,1366x768"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Device1"
    Monitor        "Monitor1"
    DefaultDepth   24
    Option         "TwinView" "1"
#    SubSection "Display"
#        Depth          24
#    EndSubSection
EndSection
# 10-evdev.conf 
#
# Catch-all evdev loader for udev-based systems
# We don't simply match on any device since that also adds accelerometers
# and other devices that we don't really want to use. The list below
# matches everything but joysticks.

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev pointer catchall"
        MatchIsPointer "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev keyboard catchall"
        MatchIsKeyboard "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev touchpad catchall"
        MatchIsTouchpad "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev tablet catchall"
        MatchIsTablet "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "evdev touchscreen catchall"
        MatchIsTouchscreen "on"
        MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
        Driver "evdev"
EndSection

EDIT: Maybe I got your question wrong. I'm hungry :-D

Last edited by Awebb (2011-04-27 18:40:57)

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#14 2011-04-27 18:48:44

BurntSushi
Member
From: Massachusetts
Registered: 2009-06-28
Posts: 362
Website

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

jwhendy wrote:

No go. Actually, I just noticed that I get errors with the above as well, even though I experience no visible/noticeable issues/problems. In other words:

]$ disper -d DFP-0,DFP-1 -t right -e
unrecognised scaling value for DFP-0 from nvidia-settings: 131073

$ disper -d DFP-0 -s
cloning specified displays instead of selecting primary display only
unrecognised scaling value for DFP-0 from nvidia-settings: 131073

But other than the complaint, everything looks great with respect to the resolution, the monitor extending off the right of my primary display, and things returning to normal after the second command... so I don't know why the error is coming about.

Ah, so it works but it just spits junk out on stderr? Mine does that too, so I'd say you're safe.

jwhendy wrote:

Oh, I guess there's one oddity: my tint2 clock appears all the way on the right of the secondary display, but nothing else related to tint2. Weird.

When moving between different monitor configurations, you're bound to experience problems like this. I have tumbled down this rabbit hole more than once. tint2 can't be blamed here, but the last time I checked, it has reasonably good support for multiple monitor setups---you'll have to check the tint2 docs.

In the past, with my laptop, I have set up scripts to move my panels and other dongles around whenever I change the configuration. It isn't fun and usually you have to settle on some heuristics---but it's nothing some bash-fu won't fix. (i.e., swap out tint2 configs or sed them, then restart tint2.) At this point in the game, I have machines running AMD, nvidia and intel graphics, so I've abstracted the use of 'disper' and 'xrandr' into some fancy python. Sometimes it moves panels around too (lxpanel). It isn't release quality, but if you don't mind hacking python, I'd be happy to share.

Have fun! tongue


Education is favorable to liberty. Freedom can exist only in a society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal.

Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito

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#15 2011-04-27 22:13:34

jwhendy
Member
Registered: 2010-04-01
Posts: 621

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

@Awebb: yes, I think we're steering away from using stuff in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

@BurntSushi: perfect. I'll ignore the errors, then. Interesting stuff re. python detection. I don't know python, but would take a look at any code you have, as I could at least see what it's doing (I know some java and tend to be able to at least follow code even though I couldn't have written it). Perhaps I can just set some kind of rule as you suggested. Out of curiosity, what does disper do if you just unplug the monitor it's TwinView-ing over to?


Thanks!

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#16 2011-04-28 01:21:43

BurntSushi
Member
From: Massachusetts
Registered: 2009-06-28
Posts: 362
Website

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

jwhendy wrote:

@BurntSushi: perfect. I'll ignore the errors, then. Interesting stuff re. python detection. I don't know python, but would take a look at any code you have, as I could at least see what it's doing (I know some java and tend to be able to at least follow code even though I couldn't have written it). Perhaps I can just set some kind of rule as you suggested.

The modules.

The primary 'video' client. It uses a simple configuration file to map things like 'DFP-1' to 'VGA' or 'right', so that I can do 'video vga laptop' which will enable the 'vga' and 'laptop' screens with 'laptop' to the right of 'vga'.

Automatically modifying lxpanel's configuration based on monitor setup.

Before I had anything other than nvidia hardware, I had a set of scripts (prefixed with 'mon') that used disper exclusively. I've deprecated them for now. They may be easier to understand than the python mess above.

jwhendy wrote:

Out of curiosity, what does disper do if you just unplug the monitor it's TwinView-ing over to?

I don't know for sure (I'm on my AMD machine; with three monitors thanks to Eyefinity big_smile), but if I recall correctly, nothing changes. You still have a big desktop. There is no "hotplugging" support outside of xrandr as far as I'm aware :-( So you could move your mouse or windows into a black void.

Last edited by BurntSushi (2011-04-28 01:22:16)


Education is favorable to liberty. Freedom can exist only in a society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal.

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#17 2011-04-28 03:06:58

ngoonee
Forum Fellow
From: Between Thailand and Singapore
Registered: 2009-03-17
Posts: 7,354

Re: ? about nvidia, xorg.conf vs. 10-monitor.conf, and dual screens

Just to add a note here, why not use autorandr to accomplish this, it can optionally use disper/randr backends. There's a package on the AUR, support for executing scripts after switching is available.


Allan-Volunteer on the (topic being discussed) mailn lists. You never get the people who matters attention on the forums.
jasonwryan-Installing Arch is a measure of your literacy. Maintaining Arch is a measure of your diligence. Contributing to Arch is a measure of your competence.
Griemak-Bleeding edge, not bleeding flat. Edge denotes falls will occur from time to time. Bring your own parachute.

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