workspaces away after unplugging monitor

asked 2013-01-01 23:01:28 +0000

i3-tiler
21 ●5 ●6 ●8

Hey guys,

i3 is running on my notebook and an external TFT is connected via VGA. If I unplug the VGA cable and put it back again everything works fine (means the workspaces on the TFT are still there). Sometimes I need to unplug the VGA cable and then work for a while. When I then come back later and reconnect the cable (after 1h for example) I can't get back the workspaces on the external monitor (TFT) anymore, the screen just stays black.

I'm not sure if I missunderstand something here but actually that should work without problems. Do you guys maybe have an idea what there could be the reason...

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answered 2013-03-10 04:13:06 +0000

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >100 is welcome to improve it.

Hi, These are the aliases I use, and they work pretty well. YMMV:

_vga=$( xrandr  | sed -n 's/^\(VGA.\).*/\1/pg')
alias laptop='xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --output $_vga --off'
alias monitor='xrandr --output LVDS1 --off --output $_vga --auto'
alias dual='xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --left-of $_vga --output $_vga --auto'

The reason for $_vga is that sometimes external monitor is VGA1 and sometimes it's VGA2.

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I don't know on what it depends but with _some_ monitors I just need to switch between virtual consoles like Michael suggested above and all workspaces were like before unplugging the notebook.

i3-tiler ( 2013-03-10 10:59:43 +0000 )edit

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answered 2013-01-03 23:35:01 +0000

i3-tiler
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xrandr was also my thought. Today I could test this scenario again. Unfortunately xrandr didn't make it, although xrandr shows that VGA1 is connected. I have no idea how to trigger that the monitor is getting recognized...

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Please post comments like that as a comment in the future, not as an answer. Also, try switching to the first virtual console (Ctrl-Alt-F1), then back to X11 (Ctrl-Alt-F7 usually)

Michael ( 2013-01-03 23:41:38 +0000 )edit

I recognized answering is not the right option (directly after I applied it) :( Thanks for your hint, I'll give it a try.

i3-tiler ( 2013-01-04 10:51:31 +0000 )edit

I tried it with switching between the virtual consoles but it didn't work... :(

i3-tiler ( 2013-01-07 21:58:10 +0000 )edit

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answered 2013-01-02 17:06:40 +0000

Zucca
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updated 2013-01-02 17:55:49 +0000

You might try using xrandr like this:

xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1

VGA1 being your external TFT and LVDS1 your netbooks monitor. To see which are correct values just run xrandr alone without arguments. After you find the correct xrandr command you might like to bind it to a keypress. I think there is no automatic way to do this... Unless you constantly poll xrandr for connected monitors... which isn't very pretty. :(

For autodetecting, here might lie an answer sooner or later: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questio...

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answered 2013-01-08 12:43:44 +0000

Cloud
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updated 2013-01-08 12:47:08 +0000

Have you tried to in-place restart i3? (In my config is: Mod1+Shift+r, check your config file for it.

That is, do an in-place restart after you reconnect the VGA monitor.

Best,

~C

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That should not be necessary when you use xrandr to properly configure the monitors.

Michael ( 2013-01-08 17:32:14 +0000 )edit

I use xrandrd in the setup script of i3 (I called it setupmonitors.sh). First it checks if the external monitor is connected (e.g., xrandr | grep "VGA1 connected"), then depending on that it either sets up two screens or one.

Cloud ( 2013-01-09 08:49:24 +0000 )edit

I use xrandr in my setup too. Pretty much like you described. Restarting in place I also tried but that did not work. At the moment I have no further ideas...

i3-tiler ( 2013-01-09 22:10:26 +0000 )edit

note that for the script to be executed all the times i3 restarts you need to use the exec_always command in the config. My script for setting up monitors can be found here: http://pastebin.com/mXnCL2aQ

Cloud ( 2013-01-10 10:56:44 +0000 )edit

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answered 2013-06-18 12:16:58 +0000

kynan
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I use disper (willem.engen.nl/projects/disper/), a very handy command line utility for switching display configurations. It is a wrapper around nvidia-xconfig but can fall back on xrandr if you don't use the nVIDIA binary driver / don't have nVIDIA hardware.

On top of that there's auto-disper (github.com/wertarbyte/auto-disper), which you can bind to a key and it will detect your display configuration and automatically switch to a pre-configured profile.

P.S.: I had to cripple the post because my karma is insufficient to publish links.

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workspaces away after unplugging monitor

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