On Thu, 12 May 2005 11:18:47 +1200 (NZST) Steve Holdoway wrote: > > On Thu, May 12, 2005 11:10 am, Volker Kuhlmann said: > >> > http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/14885.html > >> > > >> What an appalling article, or excuse for one! > > > > Why? It's informative and to the point, that's what counts. > > > > Volker > > > > -- > > Volker Kuhlmann is possibly list0570 with the domain in > > header > > http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me. > > > > I guarantee that, even if I were running SuSE on my Tosh, that it would > not work. This is because the external vga connector is disabled unless: > > a) the projector was connected at boot time; or > b) you enable the proprietary twinhead display in the correct mode. > [ there may be others, but I haven't found them yet] > > These restrictions will not be affected by distro - it's the bios that's > at fault. > > Also note that a restart of X will screw the laptop display completely, > and you'll have to perform a hard reset ( or maybe disconnect the external > monitor first - haven't tried that ) to get it back. > > The lack of content in this article is disturbing.
I agree, the problems and solutions relating to external monitors and projectors on laptops seem to be too numerous and varied to deal with in such a short article. There seem to be a combination of factors, including: 1. whether the external needs to be plugged in at boot to be recognised. 2. how you switch the external on and off (keyboard combo, software - either within X or a separate piece of software) 3. timing difficulties with projectors 4. restart problems as alluded to by Steve. 5. chipset differences 6. bios differences 7. differences between the way different distros make and maintain the X configuration stuff. if you want a real challenge, add in a tv-out port !! TV's work on weird timings (when compared to CRT monitors, which are fairly easy to get the hang of) > > Steve.
