[ltp] External Monitor revisited...

[Daniel Jimenez]

Hi all--

I'm having some really annoying issues with my Thinkpad T41p.

I'm trying to work on an external monitor. I have a number of problems 
but they go in this order.

1- When I boot up with the laptop closed, the bios, grub, and everything 
show up on the external monitor (CRT) just fine. When the framebuffer 
kicks in both monitors are black unless I hit FN+f7 on my laptop. 
Pressing FN+F7 switches to my LCD and pressing it again does nothing.

My Question: How can I tell the kernel to display on the CRT when it's 
plugged in?

----------

2- Starting X, if I start X using the open source radeon driver it 
switches over to my CRT. It puts the LCD in 1400x1050 with a virtual 
desktop of 1600x1200. My CRT shows 1600x1200.

This is a good thing, except that I can't see anything on the CRT until 
I start X and X runs on my CRT with 1600x1200 @ 50hz. 50hz REALLY hurts 
my eyes.

I tried using xrandr to change to 75hz but I get this:

Code:
djimenez@calculon djimenez $ xrandr --size 12/1600x1200 --rate 75
X Error of failed request:  BadValue (integer parameter out of range for 
operation)
   Major opcode of failed request:  156 (RANDR)
   Minor opcode of failed request:  2 (RRSetScreenConfig)
   Value in failed request:  0x4b
   Serial number of failed request:  12
   Current serial number in output stream:  12


My question: How I can tell X that I have an external monitor plugged in 
and to set it's refresh rate to 75 hz?

My video card is an ATI Radeon Mobility 9000.

Using the ATI binary drivers (fglrx) I could get nothing on my external 
monitor. Even though in fglrxconfig I specified laptop mode (which says 
it lets you switch between the two).

Any tips?

Thank you so much for your help,
-- 
Daniel Jimenez <djimenez[at]pobox[dot]com>