LCD Switching (was: Re: High resolution on i855 external CRT)

[Andrew Barr]

On Fri, 2005-02-04 at 12:18 -0500, Alex Deucher wrote:
> are you trying for dualhead or just 1280x1024 on the crt only or a
> clone mode with 1024x768 on the lfp and 1208x1024 on the crt?

I would like to have 1280x1024 on the CRT. The LFP will probably be off
with the computer lid closed unless I take my computer somewhere in
which case I'd like to be able to switch to the LCD without restarting
X. I don't want dual-head.

> > # Xorg configuration created by system-config-display
> > 
> > Section "ServerLayout"
> >         Identifier     "Multihead layout"
> >         Screen      0  "Screen0" LeftOf "Screen1"
> >         Screen      1  "Screen1" 0 0
> 
> you have two screen entries.  this is used for dualhead.  you only
> need one if you want single head or clone.

I removed the second screen entry...

> > 
> > Section "Device"
> >         Identifier  "Videocard0"
> >         Driver      "i810"
> >         VendorName  "Videocard vendor"
> >         BoardName   "Intel 852"
> >         Option "MonitorLayout" "LFP,CRT"
> 
> if you are trying for dualhead you'll need to add:
> Screen 0
> here.  Also I think monitorlayout generally refers to the crtc order.
> so the first entry would be crtc1 and the second would be crtc2.  that
> doesn't reflect how you've specified your monitors or screen sections.
>  reversing the order of the monitorlayout option may help, but I'm not
> familair with the driver, so I don't know how it uses the option
> internally (whether it switches the crtc/ouptut mappings or just
> forces the outputs on)

...and reversed the MontiorLayout option and I now can get the CRT to
start in 1280x1024 mode! The problem now is being able to switch the LCD
on with minimal hassle.

There is a key combination on this notebook, Fn+F8, that is marked
CRT/LCD. It is an ACPI hotkey, I believe. This key, along with closing
the lid, usually causes display corruption in X. The key works as
expected in the console but not in X. Even if it doesn't corrupt the
display*, it doesn't work as expected--it makes the active monitor blink
once.

Thanks again for all the help.

Andrew

* I found an i810_drv.o binary a long time ago from a past version of
SuSE (XFree86 4.3, I think) that makes the problem go away. Dirty hack,
I know; what's worse, I don't know why it works! I posted it here:

http://home.columbus.rr.com/andrewbarr/linux/downloads/i810_drv.o.bz2

Not that's that's of much use. :-/