display multiple monitor reconfigure at reboot

[Duncan]

FRANCOIS L. posted on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 06:56:52 +1100 as excerpted:

> I have 2 monitors on a dual head card;
> 
> Everything work perfectely. I configure the
> layout of both monitors with
> System Settings --> Display
> 
> But at __each reboot__ I've to reconfigure the layout
> in the combobox "Position"
> 
> How can I fix that problem.
> 
> I tried in ./kde/share/config/krandrc
> but I think I miss some others informations
> 
> francois
> 
> KDE 4.4.5
> 01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RS880 [Radeon HD
> 4200]

FWIW, I have a similar setup, but with a later card, tho possibly on an 
older (AGP, not PCI-E) system:

05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV730 Pro AGP 
[Radeon HD 4600 Series]

Also, I'm on Gentoo ~amd64 (the ~ denoting testing) and tend to run quite 
close to upstream on critical packages such as KDE (4.5.2), xorg/mesa 
(1.9.1 and 7.9 respectively) and the kernel (not 2.6.36 /yet/, but just a 
few commits away, 2.6.36-rc8-20, the 20th git commit after rc8), so am 
running newer kde and probably newer other packages than you.

But there's a critical difference.

For quite some time (until 4.4 I think) kde4's display setup wouldn't even 
work at all, because while it detected two displays, it failed to detect 
that they could be positioned separately (clone mode was effectively the 
only choice available), so it didn't even /have/ the position dropdown in 
kcontrol's (they call it system settings but at least as shipped by kde, 
in general, it's not, as most settings are user specific and kde specific, 
they don't apply to other users or to text mode or other desktop 
environments, so the kde3 name, kcontrol, is FAR more accurate) display 
settings.

In fact, for a micro release or two, things were so bad that even 
accidentally ending up in the display settings when switching from one 
module to another would seriously screw things up -- to the point I had to 
use something else (see below) to recover!

Fortunately, however, I've been using xorg since before it could auto-
configure itself[1], and thus am used to configuring such things in 
xorg.conf.  Further, there's the command-line and thus scriptable xrandr 
tool, that worked where KDE's tool was screwing up, for use with dynamic 
resolution and orientation changes with xorg running.  So that's what I 
use.

Meanwhile, I /believe/ I recall that in 4.4 at least, while KDE's display 
config tools (in kcontrol and krandrtray) /finally/ worked, there was a 
bug where it wasn't saving and properly restoring the config on restarting 
kde.  I'm not sure if it has been fixed for 4.5 or not, because as I said 
I setup the normal config in xorg.conf, and as I hinted, I have a script 
that changes resolution dynamically with X running, while keeping 
positioning, etc, for the two monitors, using xrandr.

If your interested and are running at least xorg-server 1.8 (and the 
freedomware radeon driver, I won't have the servantware frglx driver on my 
system), setting up an xorg.conf fragment to just set basic monitor 
position, etc, isn't difficult, and that'd give you a stable base to boot 
from, from which you could use the graphical utility if you wished to 
change it.  And/or I can post the xrandr script I use, which along with 
its manpage, should be easily hackable to your needs if you do bash 
scripting.  And/or if you don't do bash scripting but want to try it, with 
a bit of info about desired outputs, positioning, etc, I could create a 
one-off script that you can setup in kde's startup dir, so it runs when kde 
starts, that would set it up as desired for you.

But it's up to you as I recognize that's not exactly point-and-clicky 
configuration, and that people who prefer point-and-clicky configuration 
might thus prefer another solution, if it's available.

----
[1]  Actually, since before it was xorg, when it was still xfree86. FWIW, 
I switched from MS nearly a decade ago when eXPrivacy came out and I 
decided mandatory registration and having to ask for remote authorization 
to run the OS I purchased with my own hard earned money, wasn't a line I 
was going to cross. So a decade ago, late next year. =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman

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