I have a laptop that runs openSUSE 11.2, KDE 4.3.*. I’ve connected an external monitor to this laptop. The problem is my laptop screen is broke and I want Linux to use my external monitor as the master output.
When ever I boot it’s always the laptop screen that’s taken as the master and my external monitor always have the resolution of the laptop.
What I want to do is disable the laptop screen and change the resolution of my external monitor when the computer boots.
However I want these commands to be run during the boot process so that I don’t have to keep typing it manually. So I copied the commands into /etc/init.d/boot.local. However, it doesn’t seem to do anything.
Is there some thing else I have to do or am I copying it in the wrong place? Also, is there a way to make my external monitor as the master?
If you usually execute them as a normal user, you’d maybe have to continue to execute them as yourself, not as root. OTOH if you’ve been running them as root, then perhaps you need to delay the execution until later in the boot process. So here are three questions to get us closer to exactly what works for you:
I remember when I had openSUSE 11.1, with KDE 3.5 I was able to achieve this. I can’t remember exactly where I had the commands, but I suspect it wasn’t in /etc/init.d/boot.local but it must’ve rather been for the user.
/etc/init.d/boot.local runs just before the system transitions to runlevel 5 (confirm this by echoing something); runlevel 5 kicks off the display manager e.g KDM.
I think should put your script in ~/.kde4/Autostart.
That said, have you tried changing the resolution at the boot prompt? Try it by hand and confirm everything works first before changing the boot configuration in YaST.
Finally, you might be able to make the external monitor the master using the blue Fn key with (I think) F7 labelled CRT/LCD or somesuch (I’m on a desktop at the moment).
One question, what do you mean by “changing the resolution at the boot prompt?”
I know that the resolution is correct for my external computer.
I used Fn keys to switch between monitors on Windows but it doesn’t seem to work on Linux. I’d like to tell my system somehow that the external monitor is the master and make it permanent (my laptop is not really a laptop anymore and I don’t really take it anywhere).
Yes, as recommended by KJ44, try putting a script in Autostart. Let us know if it works. If not, you can use a delayed cron job that executes as normal user at boot time, but we can discuss that if the Autostart script fails.
I think it has sorted out the problem of the screen resolution and turning of my laptop screen.
However, I’ve got a new issue, when the resolution changes my cursor disappears. It’s just not visible, I can see the mouse effects when I move over buttons etc. I noticed this before as well when I changed the system resolution using system settings.