Do you disconnect/reconnect your laptop to the external monitor much? I.e., does it switch nicely between single and dual monitor use?
I looked into doing that for my Ubuntu 7.10 laptop, since I have an extra monitor lying around, but it goes with me on trips so it must be able to do single monitor mode too.
All I could find on the web, though, said such usage was flaky at best and downright hard to setup (for 7.10).
I'd be interested to see if they improved that for 8.04
I use 7.10 with an external monitor and laptop. The standard display tools did not work for me, as they kept stuffing up the resolutions of each monitor, so the best solution I found was to have 2 xorg.conf files, one for 2 monitors and one for just the laptop. I run a script to swap them around when I need to. Not the best solution ... but it works for me. Took me about 4 hours or so to setup, as I've not used linux before.
The latest RandR added support for that, which appears to have gone in about a month before Ubuntu 7.10. I haven't tried it, but it's a safe bet it's better now. Whether it's good enough for your setup, I can't say.
I use a second monitor at work and only my onboard screen at home. After fiddling around with settings for a while, I got it to work, but I also shut down the system when I go to and from work (I expect restarting X would also work).
The main downside of this setup (other than the rebooting thing) is that it makes it impractical to unplug my laptop and move around when I feel like it.
I'm also interested in seeing what happens under Hardy.
ya know i haven't much since running hardy. The last time I did I didnt have any problems (i think i restarted gnome though)...
The only problem I had was that the panel I keep on the second monitor moved to being on top of the other one... So I ended up with 2 panels, stacked, showing the same information.
Ill give it a try a few times tonight and let you know how things go
Well after playing with it restarting X seems to make it work fine but thats a bit annoying when you just wanna yank the external and move around. Without restarting X it just seems to think the monitor is still attached and things are not visible.
I also had the same panel problem where they will move to the single monitor but not move back when the other is reattached.
I hear the next version (intrepid ibex) will be focused on mobile computing so maybe some of these issues will be addressed.
I looked into doing that for my Ubuntu 7.10 laptop, since I have an extra monitor lying around, but it goes with me on trips so it must be able to do single monitor mode too.
All I could find on the web, though, said such usage was flaky at best and downright hard to setup (for 7.10).
I'd be interested to see if they improved that for 8.04