Acer TravelMate 4001WLMi

Site Menu

Articles
-
-
- TM4001WLMi
    -
    - Fedora Core 2
       -
       -
       - Dual display
       -
       -

    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -
    -

Dual Head Display

The video controller is capable of controlling the panel display and the auxillary display simultaneously. It is possible to have them both display the same view, but they can also display different views in Xinerama mode. A small complication is the difference in geometry between the panel (8:5) and the auxillary display (usually 4:3).

Normally, when the notebook operates in 1280x800 mode, and an external display is plugged in, the external display seems to be restricted to 800x600 pixels. To get other resolutions, the external display must be connected before X is started.
Somehow, the Fn + F5 display toggle does not work.

I added two special server layouts in my xorg.conf.

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "1024x768"
        Screen      0  "Screen1024x768" 0 0
        #InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Mouse0" "AlwaysCore"
        InputDevice    "Synaptics Mouse" "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
        Identifier     "1280x1024"
        Screen      0  "Screen1280x1024" 0 0
        #InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Mouse0" "AlwaysCore"
        InputDevice    "Synaptics Mouse" "CorePointer"
        InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen1024x768"
        Device     "ATI"
        Monitor    "Panel"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
                Modes    "1024x768"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen1280x1024"
        Device     "ATI"
        Monitor    "Panel"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
                Modes    "1280x1024"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Full xorg.conf. Use at your own risk.

When starting the X server, I can use the --layout option to select a fixed screen size of 1024x768 or 1280x1024 on both screens. In the first case, the display on the panel is stretched, in the second case, the panel misses the bottom 224 pixel lines.

An example of using X in Xinerama mode:

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "ATI"
        Driver      "fglrx"
        VendorName  "ATI"
        BoardName   "ATI Radeon 9700"
        Option "DesktopSetup" "0x00000200"
        Option "MonitorLayout" "AUTO, AUTO"
        Option "IgnoreEDID" "off"
        Option "HSync2" "unspecified"
        Option "VRefresh2" "unspecified"
        Option "ScreenOverlap" "0"
        Screen  0
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Aux"
        Driver      "fglrx"
        VendorName  "ATI"
        BoardName   "ATI Radeon 9700"
        Screen 1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen0"
        Device     "ATI"
        Monitor    "Monitor0"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
                Modes    "1280x800" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Screen1"
        Device     "Aux"
        Monitor    "Monitor1"
        DefaultDepth     24
        SubSection "Display"
                Viewport   0 0
                Depth     24
                Modes    "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

Full xorg.conf. Use at your own risk.