laptop's attached screen resolution.

[Howard Coles Jr.]

On Tuesday 11 December 2007 07:02:29 am Hugh Sasse wrote:
> I'm using a Toshiba ["satellite pro"?] laptop plugged into an LCD
> monitor.  When I boot I see the Kubuntu logo plus the progress bar
> in the middle of the screen.  Then the screen goes blank, and I get
> the login screen.  Unlike on the laptop itself, this appears
> stretched so that the boxes for the username and password are just
> off the bottom of the screen, towards the right hand side.  This
> would appear to be due to some bizarre definition of the screen
> resolution, which gets set when the login screen appears.  Also, my
> screen is shared between the laptop and a Windows box using a KVM
> switch [made in China, but whose manufacturers seem to be too shy to
> say who they are or put a definitive model number on it], and for
> just under half a second I see the whole screen when I switch to the
> laptop, then it snaps to the "stretched display".
>
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=129379&postcount=21
>
> suggests that ctrl-alt-plus_on_numeric_pad should switch my resolution
> but nothing happens.  Remember, I have not logged in at this stage.
> The reason I'm using a separate monitor is to ease the pain of viewing
> the laptop screen with my eyesight, so if I can get this to work by
> some key combination before logging in and meddling with /etc/X11/xorg.conf
> I'd prefer that.
>
> My monitor is a iiyama AU4831D 19" TFT LCD  monitor with max
> resulutin 1600*1200 which claims to be plug and play for Windows
> 95/98/Me/2000, if that's any help.
>
> Does this sort of thing sound familiar to anyone, and are there
> particularly relevant docs I should read?  Whilst I've used various
> flavours of Unix, mostly Solaris, for years, I'm relatively new to
> GNU/Linux and its conventions.

Hmm . . . . Does sound familiar.  I have an older KVM where I have to adjust 
the monitor's screen settings when I flip from a Windoze box to my Linux box. 

Try plugging the monitor directly into the Laptop (bypass the KVM).
Boot into Kubuntu and see what happens.  

Another issue may be that you have your laptop open, and the laptop screen is 
the primary.   You may need to find the "Function" or modifier keystroke to 
make the external monitor the primary.   This will allow the external 
Monitor's resolution to rule the day.

Once you plug the laptop into the monitor like that, try switching to a 
console session (by hitting [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[F2] ) and logging in.  

You could edit your xorg.conf file and manually add a resolution that should 
be supported by your monitor at that point.

-- 
See Ya'
Howard Coles Jr.
John 3:16!