Dual-Views with Arch Linux

Posted by: mistan

Set Up Multiple Displays

Multi-views represent a setup when multiple display devices are attached to a computer. This is an easy configuration adapted from Arch office site.

Three ways to setup multiple-head displays with xrandr:

to use xrandr to id and setup up monitors manually,
to use arandr (gui version) -the easiest way, yet it is very powerful comparing with MS Windows.
or with the help of a script to automatically detect monitors hooked up to your Linux Box and setup multiple-head display.

Identify attached monitors

xrandr

two monitors (e.g.): VGA-0 and LVDS (builtin LCD) setting dual monitor view with following code

xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1024x768 --output VGA-0 --mode 1920x1080 --left-of LVDS

A more elegant way of using a script.

This script iterates over all xrandr outputs. If anything is connected it tries to figure out the best possible resolution places that right-of the previous display.

#!/bin/bash

XRANDR="xrandr"

CMD="${XRANDR}"

declare -A VOUTS

eval VOUTS=$(${XRANDR}|awk 'BEGIN {printf("(")} /^\S.*connected/{printf("[%s]=%s ", $1, $2)} END{printf(")")}')

declare -A POS

#XPOS=0

#YPOS=0

#POS="${XPOS}x${YPOS}"

POS=([X]=0 [Y]=0)

find_mode() {

echo $(${XRANDR} |grep ${1} -A1|awk '{FS="[ x]"} /^\s/{printf("WIDTH=%s\nHEIGHT=%s", $4,$5)}')

}

xrandr_params_for() {

if [ "${2}" == 'connected' ]

then

eval $(find_mode ${1}) #sets ${WIDTH} and ${HEIGHT}

MODE="${WIDTH}x${HEIGHT}"

CMD="${CMD} --output ${1} --mode ${MODE} --pos ${POS[X]}x${POS[Y]}"

POS[X]=$((${POS[X]}+${WIDTH}))

return 0

else

CMD="${CMD} --output ${1} --off"

return 1

}

for VOUT in ${!VOUTS[*]}

xrandr_params_for ${VOUT} ${VOUTS[${VOUT}]}

done

set -x

${CMD}

set +x

Notes: fail to boot after modified xorg.conf

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