Bug#961307: Screen rotation keybinding only works on internal display, not external display

[Simon McVittie]

Control: reassign -1 src:mutter 3.36.2-1
Control: tags -1 + moreinfo upstream

On Fri, 22 May 2020 at 17:19:37 -0700, Josh Triplett wrote:
> Steps to reproduce (on a laptop, with an external display available):
> 
> Bind a key to rotate the screen:
> 
> gsettings set org.gnome.mutter.keybindings rotate-monitor 
> "['XF86RotateWindows', 'r']"
> 
> With the internal display active, hit that rotation key repeatedly.
> Watch the internal display rotate each time you hit it.
> 
> Switch to the external display (disabling the internal display).
> 
> Hit the rotation key repeatedly again. The external display remains
> unaffected.

As the name of the setting suggests, this keybinding is a feature of
mutter, and is not gnome-settings-daemon's responsibility (prior to 2017
there was an equivalent in g-s-d, but that code was moved into mutter
because the compositor has a much better overview of how things are
meant to work). I'm assuming you're using the latest version of mutter:
please adjust the bug metadata if that's not true.

It looks as though this is working as designed:
src/backends/meta-monitor-config-manager.c specifically looks for a laptop
panel that is not cloned onto an external display.

This feature appears to have been intended for use with tablet PCs or with
devices that are convertible between laptop and tablet modes (e.g. Lenovo
Yoga), where the user is expected to rotate the machine quite frequently.
The same infrastructure is used to respond to an accelerometer indicating
that the direction of "down" has changed.

If you rotate an external monitor frequently enough that you need a
hotkey for it, please talk to upstream: I don't think it would be wise
for upstream and Debian to assign different meanings to this keybinding.

Thanks,
smcv

Bug#961307: Screen rotation keybinding only works on internal display, not external display

[Josh Triplett]

Package: gnome-settings-daemon
Version: 3.36.1-1
Severity: normal

Steps to reproduce (on a laptop, with an external display available):

Bind a key to rotate the screen:

gsettings set org.gnome.mutter.keybindings rotate-monitor 
"['XF86RotateWindows', 'r']"

With the internal display active, hit that rotation key repeatedly.
Watch the internal display rotate each time you hit it.

Switch to the external display (disabling the internal display).

Hit the rotation key repeatedly again. The external display remains
unaffected.

- Josh Triplett

-- System Information:
Debian Release: bullseye/sid
  APT prefers unstable-debug
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 
'experimental-debug'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 5.6.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=C.UTF-8 
(charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages gnome-settings-daemon depends on:
ii  gnome-settings-daemon-common  3.36.1-1
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas 3.36.1-1
ii  libasound21.2.2-2.1
ii  libc6 2.30-8
ii  libcairo2 1.16.0-4
ii  libcanberra-gtk3-00.30-7
ii  libcanberra0  0.30-7
ii  libcolord21.4.4-2
ii  libcups2  2.3.3-1
ii  libfontconfig12.13.1-4.2
ii  libgcr-base-3-1   3.36.0-2
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-02.40.0+dfsg-4
ii  libgeoclue-2-02.5.6-1
ii  libgeocode-glib0  3.26.2-2
ii  libglib2.0-0  2.64.2-1
ii  libgnome-desktop-3-19 3.36.2-1
ii  libgtk-3-03.24.20-1
ii  libgudev-1.0-0233-1
ii  libgweather-3-16  3.36.0-1
ii  liblcms2-22.9-4+b1
ii  libmm-glib0   1.12.8-1.1
ii  libnm01.24.0-1
ii  libnotify40.7.9-1
ii  libnspr4  2:4.25-1
ii  libnss3   2:3.52-1
ii  libpam-systemd [logind]   245.5-3
ii  libpango-1.0-01.44.7-4
ii  libpangocairo-1.0-0   1.44.7-4
ii  libpolkit-gobject-1-0 0.105-26
ii  libpulse-mainloop-glib0   13.0-5
ii  libpulse0 13.0-5
ii  libupower-glib3   0.99.11-2
ii  libwacom2 1.3-2
ii  libwayland-client01.18.0-1
ii  libx11-6  2:1.6.9-2+b1
ii  libxext6  2:1.3.3-1+b2
ii  libxi62:1.7.9-1

Versions of packages gnome-settings-daemon recommends:
pn  iio-sensor-proxy   
ii  pulseaudio 13.0-5
ii  x11-xserver-utils  7.7+8

Versions of packages gnome-settings-daemon suggests:
pn  usbguard  

-- no debconf information