xrandr and external monitor

[Nigel Ridley]

I am trying to get an external monitor (LCD) working properly on my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop.

It has an Fn-F8 combo which should switch/cycle between the laptop screen and the external 
one.
Fn-F8 only works, according to the folks at Dell, with Gnome. They suggested that I try 
xrandr.

I have read the man page but can only get a clone of my laptop with the same resolution on 
both screens. This makes the windows on the laptop too long (so I can't see the bottom of 
them). On the external monitor things look OK.
This was using 'xrandr --auto'
I would like to be able to keep my default resolution on the laptop (1280x800) and have 
1024x768 on the external monitor. Is this possible?
Every time I try to set individual resolutions xrandr comes back with an error similar to:

nigel at laptop:~$ xrandr --output LVDS --auto --output VGA --fb 1024x768 --output TMDS-1 --off
xrandr: specified screen 1024x768 not large enough for output LVDS (1280x800+0+0)
nigel at laptop:~$ xrandr --output LVDS --auto --output VGA --fb 1280x800 --output TMDS-1 --off
nigel at laptop:~$ xrandr --output LVDS --fb 1280x800+0+0 --output VGA --auto --output TMDS-1 
--off
xrandr: specified screen 1280x800 not large enough for output VGA (1280x1024+0+0)

Here is the output of 'xrandr':

nigel at laptop:~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 1280
VGA connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
    1280x1024      60.0 +   75.0
    1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0
    832x624        74.6
    800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2
    640x480        75.0     72.8     66.7     60.0
    720x400        70.1
LVDS connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 331mm x 207mm
    1280x800       60.0*+   60.0     60.0*
    1280x768       60.0
    1024x768       60.0
    800x600        60.3
    640x480        59.9
TMDS-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
TV disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Is there a way to have different resolutions for the different screens? And to be able to 
cycle between them - 1. Laptop only; 2. external only; 3. both ?

Blessings,

Nigel


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