(SOLVED) External monitor

I've had a long term plan to use my three year old, Zorin 9 laptop connected to a larger display. A few weeks ago, I bought a new 24 in HD monitor, which can take a VGA input from my old Windows XP desktop (the display is working fine with this machine) as well as an HDMI input from my Zorin 9 laptop which has a 1366 x768 internal display, but with hardware which can drive in excess of HD.

I tried the Zorin 9 laptop into the display today and - hey presto - there was my Zorin 9 wallpaper correctly displayed on my new monitor. BUT - what was that! - Where are all the minimised App icons and controls that I see on my laptop??

Going to settings > Displays brought no relief, but both displays were recognised, present and represented with rectangles. Mirroring reverted to a low res 4:3 on both screens. Various plays with the available resolutions, surprisingly altered the ratio and size of the two screens - in fact in the end I got one which showed both rectangles as 16:9, with the 24 in monitor correspondingly larger than my 15.6 in internal display - Promising, but no cigar!

I am sure I am nearly there - but I did not dare to press apply - I thought it better to ask for help.


How do I get my icons back and drive the monitor in HD, if possible, please?


The backstop is to use my Zorin 12 Ultimate laptop, which has an HD display.

Just had a quick search and wondered if this thread may be of use?:

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comme ... h=f99ec881

Also check out xrandr, and when you open Displays interface click on the square with the monitor top left to get drop down menu and select help and read through that and click on any links that point elsewhere to other parts of Help in the System.

Thanks, Swarf - I have checked out the link (the additional nested link would not work).

I tangled with Xrandr when I was investigating Zorin 9 on my son-in-laws expendable old laptop with a dodgy screen a few years ago. I actually got the monitor screen working in the end (after finding the correct type of VGA cable)!

It seemed to be one of those things that you almost understood, but not quite. Unfortunately, now a few years ago and a dwindling memory.

I guess I could use it to create a specific display format for my monitor and link it to the monitor. I understand this in principle, but getting there is the problem - often not helped by the contraindicatory postings online.

If only I could find a definitive posting.

Also, unfortunately, all the Ubuntu guides that I see online do not give specific examples that I can follow.

Could you please provide more info? Make and model of notebook and whether shared graphics memory or dedicated graphics chips etc?

I will look for the laptop details later and advise.

In the meantime, I noticed a good guide of what to do on this very forum:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13575

and

http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/201 ... u-desktop/

Hopefully this also applies to Zorin 9.

My Laptop details are:

Make Toshiba Satellite

Model C50-A-1JM

Graphics Intel HD graphics

CPU Intel Celeron N2820

RAM 4096 MB

Internal screen 1366 x 768

Max screen resolution 2048 x 768

Max refresh rate 100 Hz

HDMI out Supporting 1080p signal format

Non interlaced resolution with max refresh rate 1600 x 1200

I ran xrandr and got:
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3286 x 1080, maximum 32767 x 32767

eDP1 connected primary 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 193mm

1366x768 60.0*+

1360x768 59.8 60.0

1024x768 60.0

800x600 60.3 56.2

640x480 59.9

VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

HDMI1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

HDMI2 connected 1920x1080+1366+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 527mm x 296mm

1920x1080 60.0*+ 50.0 59.9

1680x1050 59.9

1600x900 60.0

1280x1024 60.0

1440x900 59.9

1280x800 59.9

1280x720 60.0 50.0 59.9

1024x768 60.0

800x600 60.3

720x576 50.0

720x480 60.0 59.9

640x480 60.0 59.9

720x400 70.1

DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

VIRTUAL1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

So - looking good - HDMI firing at the correct output!!


Took two screenshots of what is going on :


( I'm afraid these were .png, whatever that is and seemed too large for your server)


I noted that my monitor shows HPN 24” on its screen.


I found that my mouse pointer would appear on the monitor screen after it had run off the laptop screen. Also some box indicating that I was using a large display area - something like 3000 x 1000.
This looks familiar, I thought, one large desktop shown on two screens - as seen in the screenshots, I guess.


I powered down the laptop to complete a software update and noted the Zorin “Z” dead centre of both the laptop and Monitor screens - promising I thought!!


I restarted the laptop - two “Z”'s as before (still promising) - then back to where I started. Back to nothing but the wallpaper on the monitor.


So, it comes down to how to have both the laptop and monitor to show the same thing when Settings > Displays doesn't seem to have many controls to change things? Is there some way of adjusting things “Under the Hood”?

Here are the screenshots I had difficulty with:

and

Have you seen this?:

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comme ... h=f126389f

Thanks, Swarf - I had not seen the Reddit posting, but I did find a way forward.


xrandr shows my laptop display running at 1366x768_60.0*

What I found was that $ cvt 1366 768 rather unhelpfully gives:

# 1368x768 59.88 Hz (CVT) hsync: 47.79 kHz; pclk: 85.25 MHz

Modeline "1368x768_60.00" 85.25 1368 1440 1576 1784 768 771 781 798 -hsync +vsync

Close, but no cigar - I want 1366x768_60.00 which my monitor can accept


Lucky online research revealed:

Modeline "1366x768_60.00" 85.50 1366 1440 1584 1792 768 771 777 795 +hsync +vsync

Therefore, at the command line ~$ sudo xrandr --newmode "1366x768_60.00" 85.50 1366 1440 1584 1792 768 771 777 795 +hsync +vsync

[sudo] password for ***:

~$ sudo xrandr --addmode HDMI2 "1366x768_60.00"

~$ - Job done!


All I have to do is to check that mirroring works with both displays now being on the same output resolution - fingers crossed!!

My spare TV that I want to drive also accepts 1366x768_60.00 natively so looking good

Success!! - both laptop and monitor mirrored at "1366x768_60.00"

(It still looks good on a 24 in monitor in my eyes, my laptop is 15.6 in)


All to do then is make it permanent (for restarting after a power off).


So I went to the command line and entered xrandr

then entered gedit ~/.profile

and inserted:

xrandr --newmode "1366x768_60.00" 85.50 1366 1440 1584 1792 768 771 777 795 +hsync +vsync

xrandr --addmode HDMI2 "1366x768_60.00"

after the last line.



Success - it has only taken a year or two!!



I just need to check I am getting sound via the HDMI connection to my monitor - I had already made some changes to enable this. Just tried it - another success - a little tinny, but what can you expect from 2W monitor speakers!


Now I can try my laptop connected to my TV via HDMI.

Well done! 120 Blue jewels to you sir! Thanks for sharing your solution.

For Finston Pickle I think a bottle Jameson Blended Whiskey will do

For Finston Pickle I think a bottle Jameson Blended Whiskey will do

Not from me he won't! (Haven't drunk any alcohol for 2 years now.