I recently switched back to nouveau when I upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 and now I can set up my monitors using KDE. My problem is that for some reason KDE does not store the monitor layout properly: the first display is an old LCD so I gave that one an offset (x: +1920) and made the second display the primary screen.

I save, I hit save as default, I reboot and suddenly I got 2 monitors in clone mode on top of each other...

So why does KDE offer me the option to save my screen layout when it (apparently) does not apply it when I log in?

An offset? I use two monitors every now and then and use systemsettings without any problems. I don't suppose you do it like that 'cos there is no x: + option - you can only say whether they should be cloned, left and right or below and on top of each other...

Normally your primary display (the "top" one) has a drop-down which only allows you to select "Absolute" positioning. With absolute positioning, you get an x and y offset coordinate input.

Because I had issues with negative coordinates in the past, I set those to x=1920 and y=0 (as the first monitor is in fact not my primary) and the second monitor is set to "Left of" the other one.

Thanks for the clarification, cyberwizzard.

Having "krandrtray" run on startup may help the application of your window setup on login.

bcooksley wrote:Having "krandrtray" run on startup may help the application of your window setup on login.

Cheers for the suggestion. While the tray utility helps with quick restoration I'd rather have KDE apply the saved settings at log in... Is there a file somewhere holding the settings which I can wipe?

It is probably ~/.kde4/share/config/krandrrc.

Hi,

I have the same problem that KDE for a very very long time ever ever forgets the previously stored default values.
Furthermore the correct values seem to be stored in ~/.kde/share/config/krandrrc but the commands in there are not executed on startup.
My system is a notebook with an additional external monitor and running under Debian Linux.
I would be very thankfull if someone could give me some detailed advice on how to solve that.

Best regards

If you have krandrtray running on startup it is supposed to apply those settings.

Thanks for your reply.
So could you please tell me how to configure krandrtray on startup?

You can use System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Autostart to do this.

Tried it but it didn't work - with a small difference.

What always happened up to now:
My 2 displays VGA-0 and LVDS are set to 1280x1024 (Auto) resolution in System Settings.
I changed this in System Settings to 1024x768 and stored - also as default.
And after the next system startup both values were reset to 1280x1024 in System Settings and I had to do the change again.

Now with krandrtray called in System Settings > Startup and Shutdown > Autostart - this behaviour is still the same - except that the value of the second display (LVDS) was saved to 1024x768 .

Might it be that some values are restored by KDE from an earlier session in the cache so that the new values are overwritten with the old ones ? I ask that because there are also some other settings lost on a new startup, e.g. setting the control bar to maximized must be newly done after each startup. And the konsole terminal also sometimes starts up in a directory which I wasn't in the last session and also sometimes has settings for the tab naming which I changed.

I was having a similar problem on my laptop. I tried the suggestions in this thread but none of them worked. Googling some more I finally found a solution that has worked for me.

1. Create a new script file in /home/(username)/.kde/env/monitor (Note: change username with your username and the filename can be anything, I named mine monitor)

2. Paste the following code in it:
#!/bin/bash
xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --primary

You may need to change LDVS1 to the correct monitor names on your system. You should be able to run xrandr -q to see the correct names.

You can also change that last line to this if you are going to always have an external monitor connected to it (once again you may have to correct the monitor names for your system).
xrandr --output VGA1 --auto --right-of LVDS1 --output LVDS1 --auto --primary

3. change the permissions on it to be executable, run the following from the console:
chmod 755 /home/(username)/.kde/env/monitor

Next time you start your system this script should automatically run before kdm is started giving you the monitor size that you wish

I tried but it did not work for me.
I think there is a general problem that KDE does not succeed to keep some settings the user configured in system settings and overwrites them with values taken from no one knows.
Especially for display settings - many users seem to have problems there.
And this is very sad - its such a nice desktop.
But thank you very much for your reply.

Display settings is definitely an area which is in need of work. Developers are always welcome.