Thinkpad Dapper: control external monitor/project?

Thu May 11 06:04:15 UTC 2006

mattengland wrote:
> Summary:
>
>
>
> I'm offering $50 (US dollars) to anyone who can directly
> (email/phone/IM) to solve this (
> http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=172155 ) external-monitor
> problem.  Thanks for any help.
>   

I am quite happy to help, for free, through this list.  I will help with 
the knowledge I have at my disposal, and will make no guarantees that I 
will be able to get your setup to work.  I do this in my spare/free 
time, and do not wish to pollute that spare/free time with the pressure 
involved in a paid business relationship to provide technical support.  
That is much too much like my job...  It is _almost_ insulting to be 
offered money for something I am perfectly willing to do for free.  (If 
I really felt insulted, I'd just tell you to take a hike.)

> More details:
>   
<snip>

>   0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M7 LW [Radeon Mobility 7500]
>   

Ok, so your card is an ATI Radeon 7500 Mobile.  This is a good place to 
start from.  I'll discuss this more later after I go through the 
use-case questions you ask below.

< snip>
> eg, on my Windows-based Thinkpad, I can press Fn-F7 to see a popup
> display to choose between display-config modes, eg: 1) display only on
> external monitor, 2) display my "normal settings" 3) display 1024x768
> ....etc.  I don't know how a user does similar things in Ubuntu, if
> they can do it at all...and how a system admin "marries" the
> xorg.conf/gnome-based config with these user-interaction gizmos...other
> then possibly rebooting the X server (which may work for as a
> medium-term solution...but I can't even get that scenario to properly
> manage my external monitor).
>
>   
I have not currently found a method that does not involve rebooting the 
X server when moving from single to multiple monitor mode.  There are 
currently trade-offs in the different setups that cause me to not want 
to run in one mode or the other all the time.  The main issue being that 
in multi-monitor mode with the desktop spanning the screens, my DRI does 
not work.  DRI is a hardware acceleration feature that greatly helps my 
laptop keep up with certain programs, thus I want to run in single 
screen mode at times (really most of the time...). 

I have currently found setups that use a singular monitor, two monitors 
as one large desktop (my usual multi-monitor mode), and two monitors as 
two desktops which are relatively independent of one another (the mouse 
moves across the boundary, but the windows will not).  I have currently 
set up two files in my /etc/X11 directory, with a script in my user 
directory to copy the file I want to use on next boot over the xorg.conf 
file.  I've attached copies of the script and configuration files of my 
setup for reference.

I have only worked on single monitor modes where my laptop is the only 
monitor.  I am fairly certain that the external monitor could be set up 
as the only display if I felt like trying to set up an xorg.conf for it.
>
> Experience in past situations is telling me that there's a big
> documentation "hole" in this area.  I obviously am new to this, so this
> is purely speculation, and I see that many others are experiencing the
> same issue.  Alas, if I can help fill the hole, that's great.  My first
> priority is to solve my problem.
>   

There is a huge hole here, but I believe that the hole exists because it 
is almost impossible to fill with one document.  The files you have 
pointed to in previous emails seem to bear this out.  For future 
reference, "twinview" is NVidia's proprietary way of marking their 
multi-monitor settings.  In general, pages that discuss twinview are 
probably not going to have great answers for your ATI chip.  This is an 
area that the documentation seems to fail at.  Guiding the user to the 
correct documentation for their hardware.  You could start trying to 
create documentation which helps in this area.  In your forum post you 
pointed out a Gentoo Wiki page:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dual_Monitors
which does an excellent job of trying to condense information for 
several different vendors and chip sets on to one page, however, there 
is nothing on the page which directs users in how to tell which set of 
instructions to follow, nor are there dates on the entries, so they may 
all be invalid by now.  This is only a part of the problem with trying 
to create good documentation on this subject.  If you wish to 
contribute, I believe the contribution can be valuable in two ways, 
document your hardware, the distro (Ubuntu), the release (Dapper), and 
the solution to making it work for you.  Then, also create a top level 
page that links to other users documentation of their setups in similar 
scope to yours, and create a set of instructions for a user to follow to 
figure out which configuration is the most like their own.  I will be 
providing my experiences on the LaptopTestingTeam page for my laptop.  
If there is a wiki page for DualMonitors or the like in the Ubuntu Wiki, 
I will add my configuration to their lists as a link.

Given all that information, do you wish to continue?  I will work with 
you through this list to try to set up the multi-monitor with 2 
desktops, or one that spans the screens, depending on what you would 
like to run.  I believe from the information in the Gentoo Wiki from 
above that your card has a good chance of working using just changes to 
xorg.conf.

In fact, the aforementioned Wiki contains a link to this:
http://mg.pov.lt/xorg.conf

Have you tried the changes in this to see if they will work?  This file 
seems tailor made for your card.  My only hesitation would be for 
differences between Gentoo and Ubuntu, but I doubt there is anything to 
worry about there.  Just copy the "Files" and "InputDevice" sections 
from your current xorg.conf over the one from the file, and give it a 
go.  There are even instructions in the file for MergedFBLayout, which 
sounds like exactly what you want...  It can't hurt to give it a try.

-Matt

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