On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, George Michaelson wrote:
> I have a 1024x768 'native' LCD panel on my laptop but can drive 1400x1200
> externally.
>
> Is there a method in one XF86Config file to have multiple definitions of
> screens, and have the code work out which one to preference, much as for
> the mouse selection? When an external is plugged in, it should be possible
> to tell by the VESA modeprobe its attached, and work out it has higher res.
>
> (I suspect not. I think the VESA probes happen at the wrong point, and you
> can't 'tell' the config which screen to drive that way)
The DDC part of the VESA probe does tell you about an external monitor,
but on some machines we need BIOS assistance to control whether the output
goes to the internal or external screen, or both.
Older laptops, or ones where we don't have enough documentation, that
can drive both screens, but only showing the same picture are going to be
more of a problem than ones where we can do Xinerama type displays.
Until the RandR extension, which isn't supported on the main server yet
(Your need Kdrive or TinyX, with servers like Xfbdev) we have an
additional restriction that the total screen dimensions can't change while
the server is running.
> Does anybody have suggestions on ways to handle this? What I do now is
> use a link-farm management script in /etc which allows me to select screen
> at boot-time, and do it manually (and awkwardly) if I don't want to reboot.
>
> Microslop on Dell/ATI has a desktop widgit which does this kind of thing for
> you, and is quite nice.
You can have several layouts, possibly using different Device sections,
in your config file, and run something like:
startx -- -layout BigMonitor
startx -- -layout Both Screens
or
startx -- -layout InternalScreen
(or just X -layout InternalScreen) to get output where you want it.
I'm not sure how you would get these options into the xdm config
(/etc/X11/xdm/Xservers on my machine) but that might simplify your link
farm.
--
Dr. Andrew C. Aitchison Computer Officer, DPMMS, Cambridge
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~werdna
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