Initial RandR set-up

[Kevin Oberman]

> Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 12:22:12 -0700 (MST)
> From: Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com>
> 
> On Mon, 9 Feb 2009, Kevin Oberman wrote:
> 
> > In these days of xrandr, is there a good, standard way to do the initial
> > set-up of the display? I currently have a script to do "xrandr --output
> > VGA2 --right-of VGA1" and, in one case, set the resolution of the second
> > display. I'd like to know the best way to kick this off as early as
> > possible in the startup of X.
> 
> IMO it's better to set positions and resolutions in xorg.conf directly. 
> That way it's all in one place.  Here's an example:
> 
> Section "Monitor"
>          Identifier   "Monitor0"
>          VendorName   "HWP"
>          ModelName    "2615"
>          Option       "PreferredMode" "1920x1200"
>          Option       "Position" "1024 0"
> EndSection
> 
> Section "Monitor"
>          Identifier   "Monitor1"
>          VendorName   "PHL"
>          ModelName    "Philips 150B3"
>          Option       "PreferredMode" "1024x768"
>          Option       "Position" "0 0"
> EndSection
> 
> The Position option determines where the monitor is positioned on the 
> virtual screen.  I also manually assign the monitors to outputs on the 
> video card:
> 
> Section "Device"
>          Driver      "radeon"
>          VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
>          BoardName   "Radeon X1650 Pro"
>          BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
>          Option      "AccelMethod" "EXA"
>          # WB: prevent flickering pointer
>          Option      "SWcursor" "True"
>          Option      "Monitor-DVI-0" "Monitor0"
>          Option      "Monitor-DVI-1" "Monitor1"
> EndSection
> 
> xrandr shows the correct names of the outputs for those last two lines.
> 
> The Screen section is simple:
> 
> Section "Screen"
>          Identifier "Screen0"
>          Device     "Card0"
>          Monitor    "Monitor0"
>          SubSection "Display"
>                  Virtual 2944 1200
>          EndSubSection
> EndSection
> 
> Since my monitors are side by side, the Virtual size is just the sum of 
> the monitor widths, and the height is the larger of the two.
> 
> -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA
> 

Thanks, Warren.

I had missed the "Position" option. 

I still have to force resolution on one system, though. Looks like one
monitor of mine does not give X the correct information as X does not
accept 1280x1024 as a mode when I put it in the xorg.conf. I can set it
with xrandr, though. The other monitor (they are identical models) works
fine with the PreferredMode option.
-- 
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Energy Sciences Network (ESnet)
Ernest O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
E-mail: oberman at es.net			Phone: +1 510 486-8634
Key fingerprint:059B 2DDF 031C 9BA3 14A4  EADA 927D EBB3 987B 3751