Xfce Forum

MaxWilliams

Member

Registered: 2012-04-18

Posts: 1

Can't set primary monitor in xrandr

Hi all.  I'm trying to get a dual monitor setup working.  I have a vga monitor plugged in and sitting to the left of my laptop.  I want to have it so that my regular desktop sits in the laptop screen as normal and the vga acts as extra space to drag windows into.  I'm almost there:  i have the two spaces sitting next to each other and i can drag left and right.  The problem is that the vga monitor is the "primary" one with the taskbar in it: i want this in my laptop.  Here's my current xrandr setup:

    Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2720 x 900, maximum 4096 x 4096
    VGA1 connected 1440x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 408mm x 255mm
       1440x900       59.9*+   75.0 
       1280x1024      75.0     60.0 
       1152x864       75.0 
       1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0 
       832x624        74.6 
       800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2 
       640x480        72.8     75.0     66.7     60.0 
       720x400        70.1 
    LVDS1 connected 1280x800+1440+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 331mm x 207mm
       1280x800       60.0*+
       1024x768       85.0     75.0     70.1     60.0 
       832x624        74.6 
       800x600        85.1     72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2 
       640x480        85.0     72.8     75.0     59.9 
       720x400        85.0 
       640x400        85.1 
       640x350        85.1 
    TV1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

VGA1 is the external vga monitor and LVDS1 is my native laptop screen.  I've tried doing

    xrandr --output LVDS1 --primary --right-of VGA1

which puts screens in the right layout, but doesn't make LVDS1 the primary, unless i'm misunderstanding what "primary" means in this context.  Does primary mean "where the desktop lives"?

I've downloaded grandr and arandr and mucked about in those and haven't achieved anything there.

What's annoying is that i can get it so that LVDS1 is the primary, with the desktop etc, if i set VGA1 to be on the *right* of the laptop, instead of the left.  So, it seems like the primary always just goes to whatever is the leftmost display.

Any advice anyone?  thanks, max

gymka

Member

From: Lithuania

Registered: 2012-01-07

Posts: 20

Website

Re: Can't set primary monitor in xrandr

xfce not respects that setting:) google says that this bug was even in xfce 4.4, so i doubt that anyone ever will fix it.
tried xrandr with primary switch, LXDM respects that setting. so this is not archlinux or xrandr problem.

nospam2k

Member

Registered: 2012-06-03

Posts: 1

Re: Can't set primary monitor in xrandr

This is not true. If you right click on the panel you want to move and go into panel>preferences>Display tab option Output, change from Automatic to your desired monitor.

Last edited by nospam2k (2012-06-03 22:50:22)