Have successfully installed 11.2 on another laptop with dual displays. I have, however a problem: I need to alter the resolution of the external monitor to its default of 1680 x 1050 every time I log in, otherwise it uses the laptop default on both screens.
How do I ensure that it retains the settings I enter?
I’m using KDE 4.3 on a 64-bit installation of 11.2.
DO you know what driver / chipset you are using. I think the answer may be different for nVidia and other drivers
It’s an ATI Radeon HD3200. More than that, I don’t know. If you need other info, can you give me “Janet and John” instructions?
Hmm - I’m no expert on ATI hardware.
The likely solution will be to use xrandr : there are clear instructions here:
Simple dual monitor setup with XrandR in Ubuntu (Linux) - Navetz
although that is obviously for Ubuntu I have followed them without difficulty for previous SUSE installs.
Let me know if that helps.
If running Gnome, and you look at the task-bar at the bottom of the screen, you’ll see an icon with a monitor and a triangle ruler over it, clicking this will allow you to set display settings.
The original message was about KDE4.3, and I have not managed to get dual monitors set up properly using the KDE native tools. I must admit, though, that it has to be worth trying System Settings/Display first - I has assumed aescott had alredy tried that, but maybe not?
I don’t know about 11.2, as I have read some stories that the proprietary ATI driver is difficult to install.
Still, for 11.1 on a 64-bit install with KDE-4.3.2 on a ATI Radeon 3450HD here is my experience (starting in post#11):
Laptop External Monitor Support - openSUSE Forums
I note if one wanted one probably could create a custom xrandr command (to configure an external display at the correct resolution) and put that in small script that is launched from an icon on the desktop.
Yeah, I have tried that. It’s a strange one, because when I use the System Settings / Display, I can make the necessary changes; however, the native resolution of my external monitor seems wrong. When I accept the “auto” (1680 x 1050), the edges of the screen disappear i.e. when I maximise an application, its edges disappear off the edge of the screen. They are fine if I move back to the laptop display.
Irrespective of this, when I restart, my settings are not retained - I go back to a cloned display with the same resolution on each screen. I know that it is not the card - I had Fedora 11 installed before and it worked perfectly. I am thinking of returning to Fedora for my home laptop and keep openSUSE for my work one, hopefully giving me the best of both worlds. (Notice that Windows doesn’t figure there - I have to use it, but I don’t have to like it!)
My guess is by some means, you managed to create an xorg.conf file in Fedora that provided you with the capability that you want. If you do go back to Fedora, keep that xorg.conf file, and then if you then return to openSUSE, you may be able to use some of the contents of that file to create an openSUSE equivalent.
Fedora created the xorg automatically - I didn’t need to do anything. As I said, I can have both systeme without any problem, so that seems to be the ideal solution…for now!
Thanks for the help and suggestions.
Hmm … well if you have access to Fedora and its xorg.conf file, take a good look at it and see if you can figure out what they are doing.
Hi,
I have the same configuration and had the same problems. I fixed it using SCPM. I made profiles for every screen solutions I need. But remember, change the resolutions with sax2 and test them. Then the profiles work. They won´t work if you use other resolution switches (like Gnome resulution switch icon)
The result is, that you can change the profile in grub and then start your Linux with this profile settings. This solutions fixes all my problems with single screen, dual screens and cloned screens.
But this will not work with Linux in a virtual Machine like VMWare!
I note this “just works” in 11.1 with the proprietary ATI driver as I explained here: Laptop External Monitor Support - openSUSE Forums
Now 11.1 has the 2.6.27 kernel and 11.2 the 2.6.31 kernel.
Its possible you may need to wait for an updated ATI graphic card binary for the 2.6.31 kernel.
I had to install a dual head system using the ATI proprietary driver couple days ago. It was Ubuntu, but it would be the same under openSUSE. While setting up a dual head with the ATI provided tool (catalyst), it uses Xinerama, which is less an less supported. As a consequence, composition is not available, moving windows betweens monitors is slow and compiz doesn’t work at all. I had to write an xorg.conf with xrandr settings and of course disable xinerama. Now it’s running well and much faster.
I don’t know how dual head works with the radeonhd driver, but I would be interested to hear about it, since ATI (as well as Nvidia) proprietary drivers are not -and will propable never be - available on truly open source OS. I would assume that with xrandr, it should work the same way.
I think xrandr is still the simplest and most reliable thing. I use it extensively to dynamically change my monitor setup and screen orientation (I have a tablet PC and screen with pivoting stand). GUI tools are visually more convenient but almost every time they failed to set the correct settings for me.
If you want thing to start automatically you just need to figure out the xrandr command once, then place it to the executable file (script) and then put it to autostart folder
~/.kde4/Autostart
( ~/.kde3/Autostart/ for KDE 3 ) .
For the record my laptop has Intel GM965 chipset, but I think xrandr commands are pretty standard across different hardware and driver configurations.
For example, here is what I have in autostart script:
xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1280x800 --rotate normal --pos 0x1200 --output VGA --mode 1600x1200 --rotate normal --pos 0x0
This command sets external monitor (VGA) above laptop (LVDS). Note that if external monitor is not connected it just leaves laptop monitor in standard resolution and does not set anything.
Some other xrandr commands are set to convenient keyboard shortcuts, for example this command:
xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1280x800 --rotate normal --pos 0x1600 --output VGA --mode 1600x1200 --rotate left --pos 0x0
It sets external monitor above the laptop screen and rotates it 90 degrees left.
Of course, when you use xrandr you don’t have to reboot anything or logout from your KDE session (or just X session). It sets everything dynamically.
Wish that were so. NVIDIA have long promised, and failed to deliver, full support for xrandr. Rotate only one of two monitors? No go with NVIDIA, other than through two X screens and Xinerama (which in turn disables compositing). I’ve ranted about this repeatedly as it means my pivoting monitor is useless in Linux.
Interesting. I did not know that.
I guess I’m kind of ‘lucky’ I have only one monitor (with pivoting stand) at my disposal on the desktop system with NVidia.
Well, having tried Fedora, I’m back on openSUSE 11.2. Fedora kept dropping the wireless connection inexplicably (although I have changed the wireless channel to be on the safe side).
I’ve managed to install the ATI Radeon HD3200 drivers and - hey presto! - my dual display works. More to the point - it keeps the settings on reboot!
Thanks for all the help and advice.
…and now for the next installment.
Happy with the screen settings etc…BUT…
My laptop is the main display, with my LCD panel on the right. I have enabled Xinerama, as it seems to be the only way to get the laptop to be the main display.
I can get my applications to appear on the separate windows, no problem.
BUT…
When I add an icon / widget to the desktop, it appears on both displays (although the taskbar appears only on the main display). Deleting the icon / widget from the second display also removes it from the main display.
Weird…any suggestions?
I think that is the way it is supposed to behave.