"Plug in the adapter cable on boot (or when resuming from disk), no needto have the screen connected yet. Later after you attached the external display use: Option "CrtcNumber" "0" Option "FlatPanel" "0"in your X configs device section. Works fine on NV17 and NV32 with X.org6.8.0 but should also work with recent XFree86. You then have the console's on the pbooks LCD and X on the external screen. Not perfect, but...
These options got my external display working. The laptop LCD is not off but it is displaying some parts of the external X display sort of all mixed up and at the wrong resolution. If this does not harm the display then I can deal with it. I think I read something about this in another thread so I'll have to do some more digging.
With these options, the internal display is stilled messed up, even when I disconnect the external display and restart X. I wonder if I can have X check for the presence of the external and use it when it is present, else, use the internal. I'll see if I can find some more info about what these options are actually doing.
thanks for your help Mike