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Idea #204: Improve external vga and s-video capabilities

bug This idea is a duplicate of Idea #206: Improve dual-screen function.
Written by antonioriva the 28 Feb 08 at 20:30. Category: Graphics. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: New
Rationale
If you wanto to connect your laptop in dual-head mode (maybe only one time a week) or you have to connect it to a projector or you want to connect your notebook to a TV you have to fight and only sometime you win.

My idea is to make this situation "the past".
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954
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Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #204
Written by antonioriva the 28 Feb 08 at 20:30.
Ubuntu Brainstorm was updated in January 2009. Since the idea #204 was submitted before this update, its rationale and solution are not separated. Please vote accordingly, and if you have the necessary rights, please separate the rationale from the solution. Thanks!

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darth_indy wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 01:13
definitely vote up! I have a Dell 1420n (Ubuntu pre-installed system) and I am constantly frustrated that the only solution i could fin was to clone the desktop - and rather poorly - in order to use a second monitor, defeating the purpose. Plus I can't even do that when my system is already booted up - I have to turn it off, plug in the S-video, then turn it back on. Even more frustrating when a forced disk-check pops up.

dburanen wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 01:27
Isn't the new Xorg and the new xrandr supposed to fix all this?

jcsteele wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 02:39
on my notebook (toshiba satelite a105-s4134) xrandr does indeed work "on the fly" - the problem is you have to adjust a bunch of settings before getting into the proper resolution

an example:

the projector i use for classes only supports 1024x768 - my native resolution is 1280x800 - in order for xrandr to work i have to plugin the external vga cable, run "xrandr --auto" which will find the external display, but will fail because it can't autoselect the correct resolution...then i have to manually setup the resolution. When i finally get it going, the desktop on my lcd running at 1280x800 is distorted - if you change the ext. vga's resolution, it tries to compensate for this on the lcd (since your basically just cloning the desktop) - this is not a usable solution for anything other than basic OOo presentation stuff...and even then its a PITA.

sciurus wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 03:16
darth_indy: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=617934

jamessnell wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 03:17
So, sounds like we really just need yet another gui.

sharris203 wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 03:53
look up xrandr. it's very useful! clone is only available in my options menu, but with Xrandr I now have 2 fully functional screens and desktop effects. it's install with xorg.

HDave wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 04:07
I wish I could vote yes 50 times for this. FN-F8 is simply dead on my laptop.

agl wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 18:26
This is a must have - I have to be twenty minutes early when doing a presentation with a projector, because I know there will be issues with ubuntu and more often than not i have to give up and boot into windows. It is a shame because all my students don't get to see my fancy ubuntu logo.

cornbread wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 19:51
I vote to add hdmi to the list as it is up and coming.

brad wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 20:50
Yes! This is SO important. I want to use my Ubuntu laptop for presentations.

rawsausage wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 22:04
This really just is Xrandr love + some Gnome GUI building.

pjhayward wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 23:02
Hey, if that's all it is, it shouldn't be too hard. Vote it up!

scubasteve wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 20:36
This is the last piece of the puzzle for me to use Ubuntu solely. I am a Systems Engineer and present several times a week in front of may people and I rarely have the time to mess with the projector before my presentations. This would allow me to remove the 10GB dual boot partition for windows, woo hoo!

Nabukadnetsar wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 10:55
Absolutely a most needed feature. I work as a consultant with Gutsy as the only OS on my laptop (to the amazement of my colleagues) and delivering presentations with a data projector has become a painful exercise, whereas with Feisty it worked beautifully with Fn F4. With Gutsy I have to restart the X-server to connect to a data projector, and even then it doesn't display the whole picture. So definitely a must for me.

saivann (Brainstorm moderator) wrote on the 5 Mar 08 at 02:06
To help this idea to get a better visibility, I will merge it with the duplicate idea 206 which already has more than 2000 votes. Thanks to vote on this great idea!

littlemanthim wrote on the 23 Apr 08 at 22:48
I absolutely agree that we need this feature. It is a pain to have to manually change the resolutions of the xorg.conf file in order to correctly display on 2 monitors.
We have all the tools necessary, and being able to combine them into one GUI would be a huge help.

Tankerdog2002 wrote on the 3 Jun 08 at 02:14
I agree completely. Getting projectors to work should be a top priority.

Ubuntu is going to miss their Golden Opportunity if they don't address this issue and address it fast!

Getting projectors to work on Vista is easier....and Vista is crap.

Can anyone get a memo to Shuttleworth directly? Maybe he can light a fire under the Camel's belly.

traveller42 wrote on the 11 Nov 08 at 11:15
The biggest problem I have with using a projector is that it normally becomes the primary screen and all existing windows move across to it. I've seen this with Hardy (KDE) and Intrepid (GTK).
This behaviour makes sense if you're a developer and you connect a nice high-res display. For presentations, it's the last thing you want. This behaviour needs to be configurable.

plopp37 wrote on the 15 Mar 09 at 10:45
There should also be a solution for the problem of widescreen laptop screens being cloned with a projector -- usually there is no native support for 1280x800 resolution on projectors and the resolution is forced down to 1024x768 on both screens while cloning the image. Better solution would be to use the nearest higher resolution of the projector (1280x960?) and make those 1280x160 pixels blank -- that would make real clone image of users screen without the need of reducing the resolution to the prehistoric 1024x768.


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