I know this topic was posted many many times, but I actually was not able to find a solid answer to my problem.
I have a 1280x800 screen in my intel i915 laptop and I *sometimes* plugin a 22" 1680x1050 external screen, to watch a movie or whatever.
I would like to have it configured, so my primary screen is always my laptop, with always native resolution, all the plasmoids and default wallpaper on it.
When I plugin my ext display, I want it to be on the left of LVDS1, never a primary, never "steal" plasmoids and warning screen from my primary display.
Is that achievable? I tried krandrtray, but it does not store settings. I tried KDE systemsettins, but it does not store settings (even though there is an option "store as default") and I tried a Autorun xrandr script:

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xrandr --output LVDS1 -s 1280x800 --primary --right-of VGA1 -s 1680x1050
xrandr --output LVDS1 --primary


But it always gets messed up. The most annoying thing is that tve VGA1 steals my plasmoids so when I disconnect it they are gone. And the fact that when something cashes, the new plasma crash on shutdown "feature", it is displayed on that screen, which is really frustrating.

Any ideas how to get what I want? KWin really needs to be able to do that *easly* because dual head config is no longer something that only 5% people use...

I have almost exactly the same setup (an Intel mobile graphics, LVDS1 driving an LCD, VGA1 driving external monitor)... only difference is that I have the VGA as primary display.

The whole XRandR path was also unproductive for me, in the end only a modified xorg.conf did the trick... mostly

I still have the occasional window appear on the secondary (LVDS1) rather than the primary and the VGA occasional fails to negotiate display size correctly even though it's specified in the xorg.conf

I agree that this is too hard - although I also see the problem with it being a tough nut to crack given the arcane task of understanding X11 config files and documentation as applies to any given version of xorg and drivers etc...

my xorg.conf is below, you would swap the 'RightOf' for a 'LeftOf'; google for those bits ("RightOf", "PreferredMode", "monitor-VGA1") and you should find discussion of those things... the sites I used were:

Intel Linux Graphics: Dual Head Setup How To
Dual Head with Intel i915GM on Linux

(oh, sorry for the cruft, but thought I would post the whole thing rather than try and edit it for brevity and miss something...)

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Section "Files"

#       FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
    FontPath        "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
    FontPath        "built-ins"
EndSection

Section "Module"

        # a collection of X protocol extensions
    Load           "extmod"
        # extensions for application automation
    Load           "record"
        # direct rendering infrastructure
    Load           "dri2"
    Load           "glx"
    Load           "dbe"
        # load freetype fonts and type 1 fonts
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "type1"
EndSection

# Section "ServerFlags"
#     Option         "Xinerama" "0"
# EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "keyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        #
        #
    Identifier     "SONY0"
    VendorName     "SONY"
    ModelName      "CPD-G500"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 121.0
    VertRefresh     48.0 - 160.0
    Option         "DPMS"
    Option         "PreferredMode" "1920,1440"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        #
        #
    Identifier     "LCD0"
    Option         "PreferredMode" "1024,600"
        Option                  "RightOf" "SONY0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Identifier     "Card0"
        Driver         "intel"
        Option                  "monitor-VGA1" "SONY0"
        Option                  "monitor-LVDS1" "LCD0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"

        #
        #
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Card0"
    Monitor        "SONY0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
                Virtual         2944 1440
    EndSubSection
EndSection


Hey, thanks for the reply and your idea, but I do not want to change it in xorg.conf because I want it to be more flexible. I don't use my external display all the time and sometimes, rarely but still, I use a different one, like a projector.

I have the very same problem: I have a laptop (running Gentoo) with an Intel graphics chipset, and have to plug it to different external monitors or projectors. Therefore, I am not able/willing to use a static xorg.conf file.

Although I'm a KDE fan since many years and I use KDE on my desktop machine, I was running Gnome for the last months on my laptop. I must say, Gnome works plain perfect with multiple screens.

And, by the way, gnome-display-display-properties is really great to configure multi-monitor setups.

As I have updated my laptop now to KDE 4.6.1, I wanted to switch back to KDM/Kwin/Plasma/etc. However, I had the same problems again, Plasma was acting weird in multi-screen setup: Bunches of visual artefacts, the desktop merely unusable. I had to go to a text-console and kill plasma-desktop.

I have now experimented a bit: I am now running GDM, a Gnome session and Kwin as WM (without Plasma). Everything looks fine and works ok, even in multi-screen mode. But as soon as I start plasma-desktop or plasma-netbook from a shell, the backgrounds are messed up again.

As I don't know what alternative to Plasma I can use with Kwin, I'm going back to Metacity now.

However, if I can help posting more information or testing any solutions to this problem, I'll be glad to be contacted.

Yea, it's getting more and more annoying. I recently started using activities, and I must say, the idea is brilliant! I know it's WIP and I was very sceptical at first, not knowing how I could benefit from the idea but when I tried it I love it.
But again, activities + dual head = gigantic pain the ****. Wallpaper/plasmoids switching between activities (wtf? ), different activities on different screens... total mess!
Unfortunately I find it unusable atm... :/

Please report these issues as bugs at bugs.kde.org. Given your usage of Gentoo, are you able to apply patches supplied by developers or run development (trunk) sources? If so, the developer(s) may be more responsive.