{"id":338,"date":"2010-04-10T22:26:12","date_gmt":"2010-04-10T22:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/?p=338"},"modified":"2016-03-19T17:48:27","modified_gmt":"2016-03-19T16:48:27","slug":"multi-monitor-with-kde-4-and-xrandr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/?p=338","title":{"rendered":"Multi-monitor with KDE 4 and XRandR"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the annoyances I’ve had with *nix so far was the apparent lack of multi-monitor control from the GUI. I’ve have experience with TwinView using xorg.conf<\/code>, which worked fine but was quite a hassle to set up.<\/p>\n

A side effect of this is the fact that once set up, I never touched the configuration again. For a computer with 2 screens hooked up permanently, this is fine. For a laptop which is dragged along and connected to beamers, TVs and monitors – not so much.<\/p>\n

The good news is that I run a modern linux distro which led me to believe that the multi-monitor stuff should be enabled by default. However, I am not using Kubuntu (which would probably auto-enable all new toys for me) but rather I am using Gentoo. So it took some digging to figure out what is going on these days and how to use it. On a side note: you could use nvidia-settings<\/code> instead after plugging something in but I’d rather use the automatic method.<\/p>\n

First a word of warning: the binary NVidia drivers do not support RandR 1.2<\/strong>. I have the 195.xx drivers installed and NVidia expressed back in 2007 that RandR 1.2 support was a ‘priority’ feature. One that apparently needed more than 3 years<\/em> to be released. This means that using the binary ‘nvidia’ driver will give you RandR 1.1 which does not support the on-the-fly hotplug for displays. Instead you are forced to use TwinView, define meta-modes for every possible configuration and switch to those using ‘xrandr’ (or use the nvidia-settings tool each time).<\/p>\n

Since this sort of defies having RandR 1.2 support altogether in Xorg, I decided to ditch the binary nvidia driver in favor of ‘nouveau’: the open-source replacement for ‘nv’ with decent 2D acceleration support (although I couldn’t resist and enabled the highly experimental Gallium3D support as well).<\/p>\n

To start off: trim down your Xorg configuration to a minimum, note that a recent Xorg is needed (I have 7.4 at the time of writing). This is needed to enable the auto-detection of many things or rather: manually specifying properties will override auto-detected settings and cripple Xorg’s ability to handle everything on its own. As an example, I have included my own xorg.conf<\/code> below.<\/p>\n

Section "ServerLayout"\n  Identifier "Default Layout"\n  Screen 0 "Screen0"\nEndSection\n\nSection "ServerFlags"\n  Option "AutoAddDevices" "true"\n  Option "AutoEnableDevices" "true"\nEndSection\n\nSection "Device"\n  Identifier "nVidia_8600M_GS_nouveau"\n  Driver "nouveau"\n  Boardname "GeForce 8600M GS"\nEndSection\n\nSection "Screen"\n  Identifier "Screen 0"\n  Device "nVidia_8600M_GS_nouveau"\n  Monitor "Monitor 0"\n  SubSection "Display"\n    Modes "1680x1050"\n  EndSubSection\nEndSection\n\nSection "Monitor"\n  Identifier "Monitor 0"\n  VendorName "Primary Monitor"\n  Option "DPMS"\nEndSection\n\nSection "Extensions"\n  Option "Composite" "Enable"\nEndSection<\/pre>\n
The ‘ServerFlags’ section is pretty simple: use every auto-detection known in Xorg to hotplug devices. This means both monitors and input devices like mouses and keyboards.<\/p>\n
Next up are the 2 sections for my NVidia display card. Since I am using ‘nouveau’ instead of ‘nvidia’, make sure you are not loading ‘glx’ somewhere (if you were using ‘nvidia’ in the past like me, you most likely have that somewhere).<\/p>\n
The last 2 sections are fairly simple as well but note that I do specify the native resolution of my LCD screen as the preferred resolution.<\/p>\n
Thats it! Restart your X server and run xrandr<\/code> so see the result. I plugged a VGA monitor in my notebook and this is the result:<\/p>\n
cyberwizzard@<\/span>cyberxps ~ $ xrandr\nScreen 0<\/span>: minimum 320<\/span> x 200<\/span>, current 2960<\/span> x 1050<\/span>, maximum 8192<\/span> x 8192<\/span>\nLVDS-1<\/span> connected 1680x1050+0<\/span>+0<\/span> (<\/span>normal left inverted right x axis y axis)<\/span> 331mm x 207mm\n1680x1050\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>*<\/span>+\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n1400x1050\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n1280x1024\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.9<\/span>\n1280x960\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.9<\/span>\n1152x864\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n1024x768\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.9<\/span>\n800x600\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.9<\/span>\n640x480\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.4<\/span>\n720x400\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.6<\/span>\n640x400\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n640x350\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.8<\/span>\nHDMI-1<\/span> disconnected (<\/span>normal left inverted right x axis y axis)<\/span>\nVGA-1<\/span> connected 1280x1024+1680<\/span>+0<\/span> (<\/span>normal left inverted right x axis y axis)<\/span> 312mm x 234mm\n1680x1050\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 74.9<\/span> +\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n1280x1024\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 85.0<\/span>*<\/span>+\u00a0\u00a0 75.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n1792x1344\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n1920x1200\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.9<\/span>\n1600x1200\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 75.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 70.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 65.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n1400x1050\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 85.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 74.9<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n1440x900\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 84.8<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 75.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.9<\/span>\n1280x960\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 85.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n1360x768\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n1280x800\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 84.9<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 74.9<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.8<\/span>\n1152x864\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 75.0<\/span>\n1280x768\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 84.8<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 74.9<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.9<\/span>\n1024x768\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 100.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 85.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 75.1<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 75.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 70.1<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 43.5<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 43.5<\/span>\n832x624\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 74.6<\/span>\n800x600\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 85.1<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 72.2<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 75.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.3<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 56.2<\/span>\n848x480\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\n640x480\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 85.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 75.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 72.8<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 72.8<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 66.7<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 60.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 59.9<\/span>\n720x400\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 85.0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 87.8<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 70.1<\/span>\n640x400\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 85.1<\/span>\n640x350\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 85.1<\/span><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the annoyances I’ve had with *nix so far was the apparent lack of multi-monitor control from the GUI. I’ve have experience with TwinView using xorg.conf, which worked fine but was quite a hassle to set up. A side effect of this is the fact that once set up, I never touched the configuration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[300,327,253,440,397,441],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-tos","tag-kde","tag-kde4","tag-linux","tag-nouveau","tag-nvidia","tag-xorg"],"views":2980,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":550,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions\/550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cyberwizzard.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}