zcsteele
Wed Apr 30, 2014 6:17:44 am
Hi all,
I'm using Zorin OS 8 Lite on an old netbook (Eee PC). I'm using the netbook with an external monitor to test a PC+projector setup for my church. LXDE seems to respond poorly to multi-monitor setups out-of-the-box, and I've run into a few issues in the process. Fortunately, I've been able to find workarounds for everything, but since it took me a bit of time to get things straightened out I figured I should document the issues in case anybody else is trying to use a similar setup.
First off, LXDE tries to mirror the desktop across monitors by default. I changed the layout by installing ARandR and dragging the displays to the intended arrangement. That fixed the mirroring effect, but since the external monitor has a larger resolution than the netbook screen lxpanel was then along the bottom of the virtual desktop, below the bottom of the netbook's screen. I repositioned the netbook screen along the bottom of the virtual desktop in ARandR so the panel would be visible. I then changed the panel's width from 100% to the exact width of the netbook screen (1024 pixels) so the panel would no longer stretch along the external display.
I found online documentation for multiple ways to configure LXDE to use the custom xrandr script from ARandR during login, none of which actually worked. My solution was as follows:
After all that, I am now able to use both monitors as intended. A little bit tedious, but perfectly functional.
My second issue was the wallpaper. PCmanFM butchers multi-monitor wallpapers pretty bad; it looks like it tries to use the dimensions of the largest monitor to stretch the image and then positions one copy at the offset coordinates for each monitor, plus an extra copy positioned at +0 +0 on the virtual desktop. I suppose the results would look decent if both monitors had the exact same dimensions.
My workaround was to install & run Nitrogen. Nitrogen lost my configuration after my first test run, so run it as "nitrogen --save" to keep the setup permanently. On the first run with Nitrogen click "Preferences" and add directory "/usr/share/lubuntu/wallpapers", the location where the default background is stored. My aim was to display the image full-size on both monitors, so I used the "Scaled" wallpaper option. From there I selected each monitor ("Screen 1", "Screen 2") from the display dropdown and click "Apply" after selecting each. To disable PCmanFM's wallpaper run "pcmanfm --desktop-off"
To restore the wallpaper settings during login, I added two additional autostart commands using "Default Applications for LXSession":
I've got a couple of remaining questions at this point:
I'm using Zorin OS 8 Lite on an old netbook (Eee PC). I'm using the netbook with an external monitor to test a PC+projector setup for my church. LXDE seems to respond poorly to multi-monitor setups out-of-the-box, and I've run into a few issues in the process. Fortunately, I've been able to find workarounds for everything, but since it took me a bit of time to get things straightened out I figured I should document the issues in case anybody else is trying to use a similar setup.
First off, LXDE tries to mirror the desktop across monitors by default. I changed the layout by installing ARandR and dragging the displays to the intended arrangement. That fixed the mirroring effect, but since the external monitor has a larger resolution than the netbook screen lxpanel was then along the bottom of the virtual desktop, below the bottom of the netbook's screen. I repositioned the netbook screen along the bottom of the virtual desktop in ARandR so the panel would be visible. I then changed the panel's width from 100% to the exact width of the netbook screen (1024 pixels) so the panel would no longer stretch along the external display.
I found online documentation for multiple ways to configure LXDE to use the custom xrandr script from ARandR during login, none of which actually worked. My solution was as follows:
- Menu > Preferences > Default Applications for LXSession
- Click on the "Autostart" tab
- Under the header "Manual autostarted applications", paste the XRandR command from the ARandR script into the text input field
- Click "+ Add"
- Close the window, log out, log back in
After all that, I am now able to use both monitors as intended. A little bit tedious, but perfectly functional.
My second issue was the wallpaper. PCmanFM butchers multi-monitor wallpapers pretty bad; it looks like it tries to use the dimensions of the largest monitor to stretch the image and then positions one copy at the offset coordinates for each monitor, plus an extra copy positioned at +0 +0 on the virtual desktop. I suppose the results would look decent if both monitors had the exact same dimensions.
My workaround was to install & run Nitrogen. Nitrogen lost my configuration after my first test run, so run it as "nitrogen --save" to keep the setup permanently. On the first run with Nitrogen click "Preferences" and add directory "/usr/share/lubuntu/wallpapers", the location where the default background is stored. My aim was to display the image full-size on both monitors, so I used the "Scaled" wallpaper option. From there I selected each monitor ("Screen 1", "Screen 2") from the display dropdown and click "Apply" after selecting each. To disable PCmanFM's wallpaper run "pcmanfm --desktop-off"
To restore the wallpaper settings during login, I added two additional autostart commands using "Default Applications for LXSession":
- "pcmanfm --desktop-off"
- "nitrogen --restore"
I've got a couple of remaining questions at this point:
- Are the any better ways to generate the same configuration? Any options/utilities that would make the process a little simpler, or more flexible?
- I noticed the LXpanel clock plugin is close enough to the border between the primary & secondary monitors that the calendar popup is mostly on the second monitor. Is it possible to modify the configuration so the calendar appears entirely on the primary monitor?
