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Re: can't switch to external monitor after KDE 3.5 upgrade



I am using a Dell Latitude D600 with Debian testing. The external monitor switch is software, and it seems like xorg does not recognize it.
I just did the apt-get dist-upgrade to KDE 3.5 and rebooted and everything seems OK except Fn-F8 does not have any effect (it's supposed to switch to external monitor).

However, what is interesting is that if I use Ctrl-Alt-F4 (for example) to switch to the fourth virtual console, then Fn-F8 *does* work. But as soon as I switch back to the 7th virtual console (which the X server uses) the image automatically switches back to the LCD display and Fn-F8 doesn't have any effect again.

So it seems like this is a problem of the X server.

Does anybody know how to go around it or fix it?
If you have a built-in (Intel) video card, installing i810rotate may help - it fixed the problem for me, and also allowed me to switch screens with bash scripts.
 
Also, if your xorg.conf file (or XFree86 if you didn't uprade to x.org) mentions both video devies, the Fn-F8 key won't work.  Take out all definitions for the second device (only 1 Monitor section, only 1 Screen section, only 1 Device section).  If you have both devices defined, X doesn't appear to allow you to switch between them (appropriately IMHO, since it's against the config).

This will cause you to get "could not find device section for deviceID PCI 0:2:1 or something", but that shouldn't stop booting.
 
Rob
Disclaimer: I'm just learning.

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