Naturally I have moved on. I have installed 13.10 and sinced jumped to xubuntu-desktop (because I use the Alt key). At present I am using NVidia. This is still significantly broken for laptops with external monitors. It worked under Unity, but the UI decisions and bugs in that are intolerable.
For reference, the main problem with the NVidia driver is that, when booting (a T61) port replicated external monitor, it uses both screens for the login screen. And, yes, it fixes the login and controls to the closed laptop screen. For me, I can just leave the settings and type my password in the unseen display. After some mouse movement the desktop sorts itself out after logon. So I could try the 13.10 Nouveau if you like, but other than that this bug has been left unsolved and too stale to address. Please test laptops for real world situations, which NVidia seem not to. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to xserver-xorg-video-nouveau in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1033704 Title: NVidia (Thinkpad) completely broken Status in “xserver-xorg-video-nouveau” package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Bug description: This is for fresh should-be-perfect install of 12.04 precise pangolin on T61 thinkpad and similar models. Nouveau and nVidia affected. There are multiple bug reports and partial fixes on various web sites. Problem: Nouveau driver is fundamentally broken for some configurations. In particular, I am using *** a large (1920x1200) monitor via a port replicator ***. It seems to work on the built-in LCD, and when in crippled lower-resolution modes. However, it is difficult to configure to a persistently crippled mode of operation. The symptoms are breakdown of video and system crash. NVidia driver for these machines is useless (obviously I am pretty stupid trying to use old hardware like this). In particular, the NVidia driver was always junk when using a port replicator. In this setup (12.04 etc) one has to tediously reconfigure the entire display setup everytime, and such things as the wallpaper are broken even then. Basically, I never found the NVidia driver to be any good for anything but the built-in LCD. Put another way, the NVidia driver was dreadful for port replicators, and now that the Nouveau driver crashes all the time users are regretting upgrading to 12.04. The Nouveau 10.04 LTS drivers at this date (ie 2012/08/06) were just fine. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-nouveau/+bug/1033704/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
