This is highly unusual - it seems to be using fbdev immediately, and ignoring the Intel driver.
Do you have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file by any chance? If so, try moving it aside, then restarting the system.

Hi

if this is a problem with X11, is there a simple way for me maybe to just reinstall some packages to maybe reset some of the config? I haven't done anything special but I fear that this is not going to be solved easily without someone actually directly accessing my laptop.

Any course of action is very welcome. To connect to a screen is not too critical (because screen res are high) but I am just UNABLE to use my laptop when connected to a beamer, which is critical as I do presentations very often.

thanks for any help anyone may provide.

Just saw the previous question:

I DO NOT have a xorg.conf. I have not done anything with X11 and I just checked that all looks ok.

ls /etc/X11:
. app-defaults default-display-manager rgb.txt xinit Xreset.d Xsession Xsession.options Xwrapper.config
.. cursors fonts X xkb Xreset Xresources Xsession.d XvMCConfig

Also:
I just had a look at the running services. One is Kscreen 2 and from the description of the "kscreen" package it does say it manages screens. Could this be a problem? (or maybe this is normal).

KScreen is a KDE system intended to help you manage your screen setup. It depends on X being able to do things properly - which is not the case here.

Unfortunately the package names for the various Mesa and X11 packages differ heavily depending on the distribution. OpenSUSE at least uses the name "xorg-x11-driver-video" for the XOrg driver component, which may be similar in your distribution.

ok thanks.

Any advice on things I could try? At this stage I am a bit desperate. As mentioned: plugging in screen is ok since they usually have resolution > 1920x1080 which is the one I have on my laptop. BUT I just CANNOT make a presentation (beamer) because they are usually limited to ~800x600 or similar resolution.

I just tried to reinstall some of the x11-related files, but no luck. still the same behaviour. very very odd.

thanks for any hint, help, advice you may provide

Could you try with a Live CD of any distribution to see if it works there?

excellent suggestion, thanks.

I have done it and it works as expected. The loaded driver is i915 again so no change there. Just running a Kubuntu 13.04 from a USB live stick provides me with the possibility to tune the screens as I wish, duplicate/clone etc.

So indeed it is coming from my configuration, not from the hardware (which is good news).

Any tip now on what to do to get a default X11 config?

thanks in advance for your help!

[SOLVED]

I went through a number of posts and realised I shouldn't be looking at the standard file but try to see why I got 1920x1080 fixed as a resolution. So I systematically "greped" for "1920" and then for "default" and find the cause of all my trouble.

For some reasons I had a file:

60-plugable.conf in my /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d (and not in /etc/X11...)

This was for some reason including a "monitor" default set as "default" and using fbdev and uga drivers.. Wrong wrong wrong...

So I just saved it somewhere to be safe and removed it. Magical: it works now!!

It was much simpler that I thought.

Thanks for the patience and help. This was really a stupid one (but a nagging one). Thanks again!

Not a problem. Thanks for the note to check /usr/share/X11 for configuration now, rather unusual that a distribution would ship such a file though.
If it came as part of a package, do note any updates will restore that file - so you might want to check this and file a bug report with your distribution if this is the case.