[PLUG] Monitor Hardware Question

[Dale Snell]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2011 06:39:20 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com >wrote:

> On Mon, 29 Aug 2011, Rich Shepard wrote:
> 
> >   Reading the manual suggests that the vga cable needs to be
> > attached along with the dvi cable. Does this make sense? If
> > this is the case, I cannot use the heavy ENU cable as its
> > plug is too big to fit the socket with the vga plug
> > installed. The Acer dvi cable is thinner with smaller plugs.
> 
>    The saga continues ... and is well beyond my comprehension.
> 
>    This morning when I logged in and started X the upper left
> of the root window had the default Xfce image rather than the
> image I selected. This overlaid image extends about 90% toward
> the bottom of the screen and about 80% toward the right edge.
> Looks like two root windows.
> 
>    Well, that's what I now have!
> 
>    When I check the xfce desktop setting dialog box I see two
> tabs: Monitor 1 (VGA-0) and Monitor 2 (DVI-0). Huh? Is this
> becasuse both cables are connected? Yep.
> 
>    Pressing the button on the bottom edge of the screen for
> video mode now seems to defalut to DVI. So I disconnected the
> VGA cable since the lighter DVI desktop took over the entire
> screen.
> 
>    However, this now affects how the Xfce panel works. Ever
> since the auto hide feature was added in version 2 or 3, I use
> that. When the cursor is not on the panel itself there's only a
> thin line at the bottom of the screen. Moving the cursor over
> that line brings up the panel so different virtual desktops or
> applications can be selected. But, while the panel hides, it
> won't un-hide; it ignores the cursor position. Until I get this
> resolved the panel stays up all the time (or I cannot change
> applications.)
> 
>    Why this would be in DVI mode and not in VGA mode makes no
> sense to me. This whole issue is taking too much of my time
> since I don't watch movies or play games on the computer.
>
>    If anyone here has suggestions how to resolve this issue,
> please let me know. I'm no longer seeing two monitors on the
> Settings -> Desktop display, so I'll replace the existing DVI
> cable with the bigger one I bought at ENU ... Real Soon Now ...
> when I can take more time to futz with this. My futzing
> priority now is getting the panel auto hide working again.

At a guess, there's some wonkery going on with your X11 setup, and
it's confusing Xfce.  It (X11) has probably set itself up for two
separate displays, VGA (Screen0) and DVI (Screen1).  But, since
your DVI port is working now, you can fix that.  Make sure the VGA
cable is unplugged, and restart your X11 server.  That should
cause it to regenerate its settings, and with any luck, make Xfce
happy.

Hope this helps.

--Dale

--
"Always double-check your math if there are explosives involved."
    -- Digger