KDE multiple monitors?

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2014 2:16 pm Post subject: KDE multiple monitors?

I'm stuck on this one. This has always "just worked" in the past, but currently I am lost. I have the "xinerama" flag in my global USE flags (everything was built with it) and I have KDE installed. The laptop has a VGA connector plus the internal one (LVDS, 1366x768) but when I go into the KDE monitor settings, whether a monitor is plugged into the VGA connector or not, there are no settings. It just says "LVDS 1366x768". How the heck do you configure it and why on earth did the KDE team change a working piece of their desktop?

I need a working, graphical solution. I read something on the wiki about opening terminals and issuing commands directly to xrandr, but the average joe cannot do all that. Isn't there a way to just plug in a monitor, go to the display setting, and setup mirroring?
_________________
Ever picture systemd as what runs "The Borg"?

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2014 3:22 pm Post subject:

Alright, I accidentally figured it out, but it appears to be broken in a major way. I dragged the external monitor window (I accidentally had a KVM between the monitor and laptop VGA, shame on me) over the LVDS and it clones, but in a dumb way. The external monitor is 1440x900 and the LVDS is 1366x768. The external and LVDS do not support any of the same modes, and the LVDS decides to try running in 1440x900, which causes me to have no taskbar or anything. How can I clone the desktop to monitors with different resolutions. We had this working with krand in Debian, but Gentoo is already using the newer (experimental?) kscreen stuff, and I cannot figure it out. I mean is it so hard to give me an option for cloning? It took an hour to figure out I had to drag the monitors over each other!
_________________
Ever picture systemd as what runs "The Borg"?

Helmering · n00b Joined: 13 Dec 2011 Posts: 57 Location: Italy

I'm using commands like that with KDE:

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2014 5:08 pm Post subject:

Well, like I said, I can use xrandr, but my boss and others expect a quick solution like KDE used to have which just works. This kscreen stuff is horrible. I cannot even find krandom so I cannot get back to a working configuration. Normal users need a GUI interface. Is there a way to do this with a GUI?

*UPDATE*

Yeah, KDE screen cloning is completely broken. I believe the authors of kscreen only buy multiple monitors on the same day so they're matched. I have a Dell laptop that does 1280x800. Well, I have a monitor that does that also. When I dragged LVDS on that laptop over the VGA monitor in kscreen, it snapped into place and was perfect. The problem is, 99% of the time I have a different resolution laptop screen than I do external monitor. So as it stands, at least as far as I can tell, to clone different resolution monitors you either have to make an xorg.conf with all kinds of crap in it, which will need to be edited as you go between locations using different external monitors/projectors, or you have to do a bunch of terminal magic with xrandr. In prior versions of KDE, such as the one in Debian Wheezy, you simply right-click the external monitor and choose "clone of LVDS". Really, who replaced such a wonderful, working solution with this stuff? It seems more and more that good, working software in Linux is being replaced by buggy, non-working crap. This isn't a stab at any distro, but in this case systemd and now KDE.

Sorry for the rant, I have had a fever for two days and just want my laptop to WORK! I don't have the mental capacity to work out a thousand xrandr commands and I know my staff can't do it. I just want my software to work.

Helmering · n00b Joined: 13 Dec 2011 Posts: 57 Location: Italy

Again my question, do you really want to clone? Same content on different screens? Or extend, usefull for presentations ecc. With an extended screen you won't have any issues with different resolutions al all. Much more usefull, I hardly can see nowadays a reason for a screenclone. But maybe you'll have your reasons.

Ralf

The_Great_Sephiroth · Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2014 11:20 pm Post subject:

Because the boss said he wants HIS laptop cloned. He docks the laptop to the side and has a remote monitor, keyboard, and mouse. He never looks at the laptop when he is at his desk. I have zero issue cloning to different resolution devices in Debian, but Wheezy is not using that new stuff yet.
_________________
Ever picture systemd as what runs "The Borg"?

mani001 · Guru Joined: 04 Dec 2004 Posts: 367 Location: Oleiros

Facing the same problem now...any workaround? Funny thing is Kscreen works fine when using proprietary nvidia-drivers in my desktop, but not so well in my laptop with the open-source radeon driver?

It used to do just fine, but not anymore (don't know since when).