On 2/29/24 03:27, Dale wrote:
To provide a little more info on how this works. This is how I did it.
It helps a LOT to have tab completion with this. It will fill in a lot
of the info and when unsure, list the available options. First, I had to
install the package xrandr. My first problem is the command isn't
available since it wasn't installed. So, if you don't have it, install
it. It's tiny. This is what I have for my setup. You can ignore that I
watch TV and just pretend you have two monitors side by side or whatever
and get the same results. I have a DB15HD connector, referred to as VGA
within xrandr. That is my main monitor. The second monitor is is
connected to a HDMI port, seen as same in xrandr, and what I watch TV
with. This is the output I started with to get good clues.
root@fireball / # xrandr --listmonitors
Monitors: 2
0: +*VGA-0 1920/598x1080/336+0+0 VGA-0
1: +HDMI-0 1920/1150x1080/650+1920+0 HDMI-0
root@fireball / #
Since I have different ports, it is easy to see which is which. The
last bit is what you use in the command, not the first bits. If all
your ports are the same, mini HDMI for example, I think the port lowest
to the bottom of the video card is number 0, or the first port. Anyway,
mine is easy. I then typed in xrandr --output and hit tab twice. It
will list all the available monitors. Pick the one you want to be the
first output or main monitor. In my case, VGA-0 as shown on the end of
line one. Once you type enough, tab completion will fill it in. Then
add --primary to that to make it the primary display.
For the second monitor, continue on with the command and tab
completion. Type in --output and hit tab twice again to list options.
Pick the second monitor and type enough in for tab completion to fill in
the rest. Then add --right-of, --left-of, --above or --below and then
the output device for the main monitor. For me, this is what my command
looks like.
root@fireball / # xrandr --output VGA-0 --primary --output HDMI-0
--right-of VGA-0
root@fireball / #
That makes VGA the primary, HDMI-0 second and to the right of VGA-0. If
you have more than two monitors, just keep adding --output and list and
place the other monitors. I don't have the means to test but that
should work. I'd think setting the primary is key in this so I wouldn't
forget to include that.
Once you get that command, you can test it by going to a Konsole if
using KDE or some other similar tool you can type commands in as root
and run the command manually. If it works correctly, add the command to
the file in this path. /usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup I haven't logged
out and back in again yet so we will see when that happens if it really
works and my little quirk goes away.
There is a man page for this. It may have other options that you may
need to add. Just keep in mind, what is between each --output is what
it applies too. One could have different resolutions, image flipped or
something and lots of other options. Just keep the options in the right
section of the command.
I hope this helps someone and makes decent sense. I also hope it works
after I logout and back in again. :/ I'm making a note of the
location in case I need to comment it out. Better to be safe than
sorry. LOL
Dale
:-) :-)
I've been gone for a few days as I was rebuilding my main PC.
I thought I'd provide an update: it was xorg-server causing all the issues.
I figured as I had to redo everything anyway to switch to systemd and
wayland as that's what the bigger DE's tend to be supporting nowadays.
After fiddling around with systemd for a day (I'd tried it once before
converting a system from openrc->systemd and failed miserably - nothing
worked) I've reconfigured most things the "systemd" way.
I guess starting fresh solves all sorts of issues. :o)
Some things I like about systemd:
- It is capable of automounting NFS shares out of the box; I just
configured fstab so systemd automatically generated the automount
configured it required. No extra steps needed;
- It provides a scrollable list by default showing all the items you
have access to in order to change how your machines behaves;
- It isolates services in logs. This was helpful when sddm didn't want
to behave.
Some things I don't like:
- It has nutty network configuration. It was applying an APIPA network
address as the primary for my interface which broke all sorts of
tools. Took me a while to figure out how to stop that.
- It doesn't update resolv.conf even though I'd specified a DNS
server! So literally nothing worked. For now I manually removed
resolv.conf and put the DNS server there. Plan to use something
else for network management that sets resolv.conf properly. I have
no desire to use networkd-resolved.
But, back to the original problem...
I don't know what was broken in my original system. I always had to
reconfigure monitors every time I logged in.
As I mentioned I switched to wayland and on the fresh install it
actually gave me a desktop. I set the monitor orientation and location,
and I can log out and back in and it remembers the monitor orientation
and location now. Which is what I was trying to solve.
However, sddm was still quite broken and the monitors were in some
default strange configuration that made no sense. I fought with this
with xrandr trying to solve it and nothing I did would make it stick. I
then found in KDE's sccm settings you can apply the wayland desktop
settings to sccm - I did that but was disappointed when I rebooted that
it didn't work. What did work was reading the docs and switching sddm to
use wayland and kwin instead of X11! Once I did that, now the monitor
layouts are the same between the desktop and sddm. So I'm happy about that.
Other issues I came across were forgetting the kernel config for nvidia
cards and tty output. It took me a lot of head scratching and searching
to realize I had enabled something in the kernel that was doing this.
The sound server also dramatically changed as I had no sound at all from
KDE but I could see, use and get sound from the shell. Some new pipewire
thing. I really wish that devs would fix existing things that have
issues instead of making a new thing that doesn't work.
Other than that, I really had no issues. Was able to mount encrypted
volumes with no fuss.
I'm now working on the important bits - customizing KDE again and
restoring my backups.
I did have an odd issue (well, still have actually - it's not resolved)
with microcode but I'll create a new thread for that.
So, wayland and systemd actually fixed something for me. Who would've
thought...
Dan
