Monitor (DVI-0) and TV (DVI-1), both 1920x1080. Putting the TV on top of the Monitor, Tap Unify Outputs and Tap Apply. Looks OK, but log out and in again: The desktop icons are now gone, only the panel widgets shown. Same on Monitor and TV.

The install was virgin Kubuntu 15.04, and my video card is ATI Radeon 4750, but have not installed fglrx.

It gets even weirder! After logging in with setting only DVI-0, a program started from the panel moves off to the right and cannot be seen (turns out it appears on the DVI-1 screen, which I can see if I mark it and tap apply). The work around is to cancel this program at the panel, and start some other program from the desktop (there is a slight upwards movement), and then it is possible to start the program from the panel and view it normally.

Seems that the configuration file is not compiled or saved properly. Where is display configuration saved??

Were are the settings saved?

I did notice the same problem, also Kubuntu 15.04.

In my case it's three screens: Two DVI, one HDMI (TV). Turning off the HDMI screen by unchecking "Display: Enabled" in the Display Configuration settings dialog results in an "invisible" screen to the right of my two DVI screens. Overlaying the HDMI screen results in the problem you described.

When overlaying the screens I think the HDMI _always_ gets placed in front of the DVI. Why the DVI's plasma panel then still shows... no idea.

Just installed Fedora 22. Managed to unify KDE (just using settings/display - not changing to "folder" in the upper left corner), lost it, but managed to unify again. Logged out and into Gnome, where I also managed to unify. Back to KDE shows unified, but no Desktop icons or widgets displayed. Reset to Monitor and reunified again. Back to Gnome - still unified - back to KDE - unified but no icons or widgets. As I prefer KDE I will leave it there, unified.

So changing to "folder" is not required. Seems Fedora less likely to crash than Kubuntu. Will try Kubuntu once more without the "folder".

No, did not get any further with Kubuntu 15.04. Also when rebooting unified Fedora 22 I lost the desktop Icons - so I think Plasma 5 just is not ready for unified display!

I'd rather say the problem is that the kcm (from stracing it at least) doesn't save anything anywhere.
Out of curiousity: what is an "unified display" supposed to be?

(I only know the failed UDI approach to replace VGA)

I understand unified display as having two (or more) monitors showing the identical display, cloned. My HTPC setup is to run videos and movies on the PC, or streaming from the internet to the PC, which is set up with a monitor 1920x1080 (PAL HD). The PC's video card is connected with a 7 m video cable to the TV in the living room, also 1920x1080. http://youtu.be/H0I1lM1X3nk

Code: Select all

xrandr --output DVI-1 --same-as DVI-0


But that does of course not fix the kcm.

You can transfer the above (runtime setting, must be called for every login) to an xorg.conf snippet, something along

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Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "DVI-1"
        Option          "SameAs" "DVI-0"
EndSection


But kscreen might still alter the config during a login. (I do not know where it read/writes its stuff from, sorry)

KScreen writes the monitor configuration in ~/.local/share/kscreen.

I did edit ~/.local/share/kscreen to show the same position for both displays (x=0 y=0), but after reboooting there are no widgets or icons on the desktop anymore, but both display showed the panel with widgets and icons. Neiter the deskop or the panel icons are stored in kscreen - where??

Ahh.

~/.local/share/kscreen is a directory and it's apparently supposed to contain hash named files (no wonder that didn't fit my strace grep pattern
=> delete the ~/.local/share/kscreen FILE in case you actually wrote one.

Applets are configured in ~/.config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc

I only edited a file called "29a188dec574e6c7694496c85b854517" in the kscreen folder, just positions.

Thanks for pointing out the appletsrc file. It will take me a while to understand what containments and immutabilty means, but anyway found reference to Icons and widgets on the desktop and panel, and suppose their positions are defined. Have to check what happens to this when I loose the desktop items upon reboot.

Question: in the hamburger (upper left corner thingie), should I use layout "wallpaper" or "folder"?

Have tried to understand what is happening. My starting point is a not unified display with my monitor DVI-0 as primary display and TV DVI-1 as secondary display. Going into System Settings/Display and Monitor - making sure the Monitor coordinates are 0,0 - and moving the TV to cover the Monitor - also making sure 0.0 coordinates. Pressing Unifiy display and then Apply updates the coordinates in ~/.local/share/kscreen/29a188dec574e6c7694496c85b854517 So far so good!

But when exiting settings/display one gets asked to confirm the changes - this updates ~/config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc from a 10-page text file (including coordinates for desktop and panel Widgets and Icons ) to just over 1-page file (with just the panel Widgets and Icons). When logging out and in again the display on the Monitor and the PC are identical - showing the panel Icons and Widgets, but nothing on the desktop. Tried to copy back the previous 10-page file and relogin, but to no avail.

The above happens with the layout setting "Desktop" in the "thingy". Changing that to "Folder" and applying Unify settings and Apply as above, updates the coordinates in~/.local/share/kscreen/29a188dec574e6c7694496c85b854517. Fine! But one is not asked to confirm the changes when exiting settings/display, and thus the ~/config/plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc is not changed. When logging out and in again the display on the Monitor and the PC are identical - showing the panel Icons and Widgets as before, but on the desktop there are no Widgets and the Icons are in ordered rows on the top of the desktop rather than i my previous arrangement. I can rearrange the existing Icons but cannot ad new Icons. When trying to add Widgets, they either disappear straight away, or if I manage to move them into the desktop, they cause crash.

Has anybody managed to unify display with plasma 5 ??

Nobody??