Dual Monitors Context Menu Problems (Fedora 12 LXDE/Openbox)

Problems with hardware & laptops not being detected or supported during or after install.
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sheepy
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 12:15 pm

Dual Monitors Context Menu Problems (Fedora 12 LXDE/Openbox)

Post by sheepy »

Firstly I would like to stress I'm not complaining about LXDE as without it, and the kind efforts of the project's contributors, I just simply wouldn't be able to use this laptop. The laptop was given to me by a friend about 18 months ago with Windows XP on it, it took about a minute to boot up on a fresh install, and it was just painful to attempt to use it, I could make a cup of tea whilst it was loading Firefox. It was better than my previous laptop, which I had run Linux on for several years. Over the years I have tried lots of different distributions and desktop environments to be able to make my old laptops suitable as workstations for web development, and from all this testing I have been the most pleased with LXDE. I hope this post helps me, and other people, find a solution and to ultimately improve the LXDE project.

Laptop: HP 510

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Intel Celeron M 1.5Ghz, 1GB DDR2 RAM, Intel Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller.
Fedora 12 LXDE Spin (uses OpenBox)
15.4" screen, 1280x800, on the left.
Monitor: Xerox XA7-19i

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19", 1280x1024, on the right
I have always had problems when hooking any laptop to an external monitor. To use my external monitor, spanning my desktop over it, I run this shell script:

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#!/bin/sh

xrandr --newmode "1280x1024" 108.88 1280 1360 1496 1712 1024 1025 1028 1060 -HSync +Vsync
xrandr --addmode VGA1 1280x1024
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024 --right-of LVDS1
After that, xrandr now shows:

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[luke@localhost ~]$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 4096 x 4096
LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 331mm x 207mm
   1280x800       60.0*+
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        59.9  
VGA1 connected 1280x1024+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        59.9  
   1280x1024      60.0* 
The problems I am trying to fix are apparent in the screenshots attached to this thread, and in my reply to this thread as I could not attach more than 3 images to this post.

Problems:
1. The desktop settings currently has no background image, and black background set. The parts with the blue image background seem to be outside the desktop boundaries, and the settings for it cannot be changed from the GUI. Ideally I would like the desktop settings to control the entire area. This black area helps identify the laptop screen and hopefully diagnose several problems.

2. When right clicking in the black area on the desktop, a LXDE context menu appears. When right clicking in the blue area on the desktop, a OpenBox context menu appears.

3. I have set the Taskbar Panel to be on the width of one screen on the bottom right, and made sure maximised windows don't cover or hide underneath the panel. Originally I was hoping to display it only on the laptop screen, but it isn't visible as the external monitor has a taller resolution. I have also tried setting xrandr to make the laptop screen be the bottom left of the virtual area but this screws more things than it solves. Strange how it duplicates on both screens on the screenshot, but I can't see it on the laptop screen. You will also notice when applications are maximised on the laptop screen a black bar the height of the panel cannot not be used, quite annoying.

4. When applications are open on the external monitor, right clicking in the application or using the File toolbar at the top, results in the context menu showing within the black area of the laptop screen, so as soon as I move the mouse over to it, it disappears! Really frustrating this one... it seems to do it in some applications but not others. It does it in all LXDE applications, and Netbeans, but not Firefox.

I have never had much luck in the past when writing xorg.conf files, especially as I sometimes use the laptop without the external screen, but it seems that this could be a solution to these problems. Unless I need to configure OpenBox/LXDE somehow too? I have tried using the LXDE xrandr GUI (lxrandr?) but that doesn't solve anything, and has very limited options (just allows turning screens on and off, and changing to a auto-detected resolution).
Attachments
lxde-context.jpg
LXDE Context Menu on Laptop Screen (LVDS1 @ 1280x800)
(93.92 KiB) Downloaded 2 times
openbox-context.jpg
Openbox Context Menu on External Monitor (VGA1 @ 1280x1024)
(199.23 KiB) Downloaded 2 times
Last edited by sheepy on Sun Jan 10, 2010 4:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
sheepy
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 12:15 pm

Re: Dual Monitors Context Menu Problems (Fedora 12 LXDE/Openbox)

Post by sheepy »

More screenshots.

Thanks for looking.
Attachments
netbeans-context.jpg
Right-click context menu for Netbeans appears on the laptop monitor.
(177.99 KiB) Downloaded 2 times
netbeans-file-toolbar.jpg
File toolbar context menu for Netbeans appears on the laptop monitor.
(184.18 KiB) Downloaded 3 times
sheepy
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Jan 10, 2010 12:15 pm

Re: Dual Monitors Context Menu Problems (Fedora 12 LXDE/Openbox)

Post by sheepy »

Well I managed to solve most of the problems by using the following xorg.conf, obviously ymmv and it will need altering for different hardware.

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Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier	"X.org Configured"
	Screen		"Screen0"
	InputDevice	"Mouse0" "CorePointer"
	InputDevice	"Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
	ModulePath	"/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
	FontPath	"catalogue:/etc/X11/fontpath.d"
	FontPath	"built-ins"
EndSection

Section "Module"
	Load "dri"
	Load "dri2"
	Load "extmod"
	Load "dbe"
	Load "glx"
	Load "record"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Keyboard0"
	Driver		"kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Mouse0"
	Driver		"mouse"
	Option		"Protocol"	"auto"
	Option		"Device"	"/dev/input/mice"
	Option		"ZAxisMapping"	"4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Card0"
	Driver		"intel"
	VendorName	"Intel Corporation"
	BoardName	"Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller"
	BusID		"PCI:0:2:0"
	Option		"AccelMethod"		"EXA"
	Option		"MigrationHeuristic"	"greedy"
	Option		"TripleBuffer"		"true"
	Option		"monitor-LVDS"		"LVDS1"
	Option		"monitor-VGA"		"VGA1"
	Option		"monitor-TV"		"TV"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Card1"
	Driver		"intel"
	VendorName	"Intel Corporation"
	BoardName	"Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller"
	BusID		"PCI:0:2:0"
	Option		"AccelMethod"		"EXA"
	Option		"MigrationHeuristic"	"greedy"
	Option		"TripleBuffer"		"true"
	Option		"monitor-LVDS"		"LVDS1"
	Option		"monitor-VGA"		"VGA1"
	Option		"monitor-TV"		"TV"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"LVDS1"
	VendorName	"HP 510"
	ModelName	"15.4"
	Option		"DPMS"
	Option		"PreferredMode"		"1280x800"
	Option		"Position"		"0 223"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"VGA1"
	VendorName	"Xerox"
	ModelName	"XA7-19i"
	ModeLine	"1280x1024" 108.88 1280 1360 1496 1712 1024 1025 1028 1060 -HSync +Vsync
	Option		"DPMS"
	Option		"PreferredMode"		"1280x1024"
	Option		"RightOf"		"LVDS1"
	Option		"Position"		"1280 0"
EndSection

Section "Monitor" 
	Identifier	"TV"
	Option		"Ignore"	"True" 
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Screen0"
	Device		"Card0"
	Monitor		"LVDS1"
	DefaultDepth	24

	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport	0 223
		Depth		24
		Modes		"1280x800"
		Virtual		2560 1024
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Screen1"
	Device		"Card0"
	Monitor		"VGA1"
	DefaultDepth	24

	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport	1280 0
		Depth		24
		Modes		"1280x1024"
		Virtual		2560 1024
	EndSubSection
EndSection
It works fine with or without the monitor plugged in, which is ideal for a laptop, only provision is you plug the monitor in before booting up otherwise I have to use xrandr to turn the monitor on. All the context menus appear on the screen that the mouse is on. The only thing that is broken now is the desktop seems to have a maximum width of one screen, not a problem though and can live it with - I assume it is due to some LXDE/OpenBox setting somewhere?

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[luke@localhost ~]$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2560 x 1024, maximum 4096 x 4096
LVDS1 connected 1280x800+0+223 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 331mm x 207mm
   1280x800       60.0*+
   1024x768       60.0  
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        59.9  
VGA1 connected 1280x1024+1280+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
   1280x1024      60.0*+
   800x600        60.3     56.2  
   640x480        59.9  
Attachments
almost-there.jpg
Nearly working!
(149.75 KiB) Not downloaded yet
salmagory
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 10:47 am

Re: Dual Monitors Context Menu Problems (Fedora 12 LXDE/Openbox)

Post by salmagory »

How similar to Red Hat is Fedora? I'm planning on taking a course to get RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) and im wondering if Fedora still has enough in common that i could (using the command prompt) learn to do maintainance and networking so that i won't struggle when it gets down to doing the courses, so does anyone know if the command line commands in Fedora are different from Red Hat?
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matrimonial
Last edited by salmagory on Sat Feb 27, 2010 11:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
maces
Posts: 503
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2008 6:04 pm
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Re: Dual Monitors Context Menu Problems (Fedora 12 LXDE/Openbox)

Post by maces »

Hi,

1.) I'm using "feh" to set my background (doesn't needed the icons). Works for me with dalhead.

2.) Have you tried the new PCManFM?

3.) That's happening with diffrent reselutions, the panel is simply to low, "under your screen on your desk ;)". You could change the position to top.

Newer versions of X.org should do stuff like that automatically. Have a look at Hal/X.org.

I got my dualhead working, using X.org.conf and nvidia driver. Here my xorg.conf, hope it helps:

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# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 1.0  (buildmeister@builder58)  Fri Aug 14 18:34:43 PDT 2009

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "glx"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "dri"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "record"
    Load           "xtrap"
    Load           "freetype"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Samsung SyncMaster"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 81.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 60.0
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor1"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Samsung SyncMaster"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 81.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 60.0
EndSection

Section "Device"

# added by user
        #Option "coolbits" "1"
    Identifier     "Card0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce 6500"
    Option         "NoLogo" "true"
# graka overclocking "1"=true
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce 6500"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen          1
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce 9800 GT"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0"
    Option         "TwinView" "1"
    Option         "metamodes" "DFP-0: 1920x1080 +0+0, DFP-1: nvidia-auto-select +1920+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Device1"
    Monitor        "Monitor1"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DFP: 1920x1080 +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Hopefully this fixes some of the remaining problems.

maces
guyr
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2011 11:14 pm

Re: Dual Monitors Context Menu Problems (Fedora 12 LXDE/Open

Post by guyr »

I found this thread via search. I just installed Fedora 14 x86_64 LXDE Spin on a laptop with an external monitor. Without an xorg.conf, it made my external LCD the primary, so I created a /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-screen.conf with a single radeon device and the laptop display as primary. All that is working now.

However, I'm having the same problem documented in one of the previous posts. The external monitor is taller than the laptop display, so when I put the taskbar on the bottom, it doesn't appear on the laptop but does appear on the external monitor; it is probably below the viewable area on the laptop screen This seems like a bug to me, probably with the OpenBox window manager. When I open a terminal and try to move it down on the laptop, it hesitates when the bottom window boundary reaches the bottom on the laptop display. That tells me the window manager knows where the bottom of the laptop display is. So, the window manager has enough information to display the taskbar properly on the laptop . The fact that it doesn't is a bug.

I had Gentoo and Gnome on this laptop until I installed Fedora and LXDE, and the Gentoo set up had no trouble putting the taskbar at the bottom of the laptop display. xorg.conf was configured pretty much the same - only one device with two monitors. So, the Gnome window manager metacity seemed to handle this configuration properly.

For now I just put the taskbar at the top, and set its pixel width to the width of the laptop display, as I only want the task bar on the laptop. If I get some spare time, I'll try updating xorg.conf to create two devices, assign one monitor to each and enable Xinerama. Then I can probably put the taskbar on the bottom of the laptop display.

Should I open an OpenBox bug or enhancement request?
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