Display resolution issue on 12.04 with external display on laptop

[Chris Green]

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 06:13:44PM +0100, Liam Proven wrote:
> On 28 May 2012 17:55, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> > On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 05:22:28PM +0100, Liam Proven wrote:
> >> On 28 May 2012 11:50, Chris Green <cl at isbd.net> wrote:
> >> > We have just upgraded my wife's Dell Vostro v13 laptop from
> >> > 10.04 to 12.04, it all works OK except that it doesn't work so well with
> >> > an external monitor as it used to.
> >> >
> >> > What happens now when an external monitor is plugged in is that the
> >> > laptop screen runs at 1366x768 (as it should) but the external VGA
> >> > screen runs at 1024x768 and only shows the LH portion of the full
> >> > 1366x768 screen.
> >> >
> >> > It used to work fine on 10.04, when the external monitor was plugged in
> >> > the internal screen was disable and the external one ran at its native
> >> > resolution 1680 x 1050.  Now what happens is that the internal screen
> >> > contnues to run at 1366x768 and the external one runs at 1024x768 and
> >> > shows only the LH portion of the full screen.
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > Any ideas for a workaround/fix to get the external monitor right?
> >>
> >> What settings do you have in the Displays control panel?
> >>
> > Sorry, I'm running xubuntu so maybe shouldn't be asking here.
> >
> > However you have taken me some way to a solution as I can now *manually*
> > select the right resolution needed.  It used to 'just work' all by
> > itself though.
> >
> > Thanks.
> 
> Ah.
> 
> You didn't mention that, but then, I've found that if I mention that
> I'm using Mint 9 rather than Ubuntu 10.04, people generally won't
> answer me. If I don't mention this fact, I get Ubuntu-related answers
> that work fine. :¬/
> 
Quite!  :-)   I was assuming (maybe correctly) that this is an
underlying ubuntu core issue rather than an xubuntu one.


> So I see why you didn't mention it, but still... Your response
> suggests that maybe you had not looked at the display settings at all,
> before you posted? Surely that cannot be the case?
> 
The external monitor wasn't there in the display settings the first time
I looked.  Now it's there one can (manually) select which display to use
and set the resolution for it.

Previously (we upgraded from 10.04) it just worked with resolution set
and display selected according to whether the external display was
plugged in or not, no manual intervention required.


> FWIW I found that under LXDE and XFCE, their display managers could
> not get me a working dual-head desktop on my Thinkpad X31, something
> GNOME and Unity did with ease.
> 
Dual head would be great but not really necessary.


-- 
Chris Green