Creating a custom montitor configuration in mate Linux laptop that sitcks!

Scenario:
One laptop and one external monitor.
The laptop screen is the primary monitor (LVDS1)
The external monitor is the secondary monitor, orientated left (HDMI1)

Problem:
When the lid of the laptop is put down and then raised, the screens do not retain resolution settings and does either one of the following:
Laptop LCD off
Laptop LCD resolution wrong
External monitor rotated back to normal instead of orientated left.

Why this is happening:

It seems that there are too many things that can cause the screen resolution to change, including ACPI daemon, mate screensaver, lid.sh....  Too many cooks spoil the broth....

Solutions:
The manual solution is to unplug the HDMI cable and lower and raise the lid and then plug HDMI back in.  Not good enough.

Control freak Solution:
First get your screen setup right, use the 'mate-display-properties' to get your resolution and orientation correct.

Then open 'mateconf-editor' and tweak these settings:
apps/mate-power-manager/buttons  lid_ac = nothing
This will now prevent your system form changing your monitor settings on your behalf.


In a command line as a normal user excute the xrandr command.

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2266 x 1440, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS1 connected 1366x768+0+327 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 193mm
   1366x768       60.0*+
   1360x768       59.8     60.0 
   1024x768       60.0 
   800x600        60.3     56.2 
   640x480        59.9 
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI1 connected 900x1440+1366+0 left (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 410mm x 256mm
   1440x900       59.9*+   75.0 
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0 
   1280x960       60.0 
   1152x864       75.0 
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0 
   832x624        74.6 
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2 
   640x480        72.8     75.0     66.7     60.0 
   720x400        70.1 
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis

translating from the xrandr output, a single line command to reset the screen to the desired dimension can be found:

xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768 --rotate normal --output HDMI1 --mode 1440x900 --rotate left --right-of LVDS1

Now at this stage, depending on your situation, you can 'hardcode' you configuration into your system and make it stick OR crate a xrandr script that is manually activated.

looking in /etc/acpi/events/lidbtn shows that the script /etc/acpi/lid.sh
 is called when the lid button is activated

# /etc/acpi/events/lidbtn
# Called when the user closes or opens the lid

event=button[ /]lid
action=/etc/acpi/lid.sh

Having a look in the last line of /etc/acpi/lid.sh yeilds this:

[ -x /etc/acpi/local/lid.sh.post ] && /etc/acpi/local/lid.sh.post

This file lid.sh.post, if exists is excututed when the lis switch is activated.  Note that this file does not exist by default, so it needs to be made.

sudo mkdir /etc/acpi/local/
sudo touch lid.sh.post

add this to the file lid.sh.post

#! /bin/sh
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768 --rotate normal --pos 0x327 --output HDMI1 --mode 1440x900 --rotate left --pos 1366x0 --right-of LVDS1

then make it excutable:
sudo chmod +x lid.sh.post

Test to see if the lid closing and opening changes the screen setup.


References:
http://dosnlinux.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/xubuntu-acpi-the-lid/


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