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[SOLVED] How to switch between monitors in KDE?

Posted:
Sep 26th, '12, 03:42
by DoubtingT
Hi,
I have an Acer Aspire 5750 set up with an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.
I'm running a laptop as a desktop because my area is prone to power cuts. I run
the setup with the laptop monitor disabled.
We had a power cut yesterday and although the onboard battery stopped the
laptop going into a dirty shutdown, I realised belatedly that I had no way of
lighting up its own monitor to continue working or shut it down properly.
Is there a hot key combination that works with Mageia 2 64 bit to get back to
the laptop monitor?
Thanks in advance.
Re: Help. Is there a hot key swap for monitors on a laptop?

Posted:
Sep 26th, '12, 14:38
by viking60
Does it work with an external monitor? Shifting back with <fn>+<F5> could work.
Re: Help. Is there a hot key swap for monitors on a laptop?

Posted:
Sep 26th, '12, 15:39
by DoubtingT
Thanks for looking in.
Sorry, I should have mentioned this in my first post.
You're right, <fn> +<F5> will give the swap function according to the Aspire manual, but I assume this is only running Windows. It doesn't work in Mageia - I tried it with both monitors running and with the laptop monitor turned off. No effect. I just wondered if there was a combination under KDE that had the same function.
Re: Help. Is there a hot key swap for monitors on a laptop?

Posted:
Sep 26th, '12, 17:16
by tom_
if so, you need to find a command to switch the display output
and then associate a KDE keybinding to that command
if you have an nvidia card you can try to use disper
http://willem.engen.nl/projects/disper/here some more info on disper:
http://maketecheasier.com/change-linux-displays-on-the-fly-with-disper/2010/12/22or you can use xrand, here some example:
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-change-display-resolution-settings-using-xrandr.html
Re: [SOLVED] Is there a hot key swap for monitors on a lapto

Posted:
Sep 27th, '12, 04:44
by DoubtingT
Hi,
Unfortunately I don't have an Nvidia display, so couldn't use Disper. I
installed lxrandr which gave the option to switch monitors without going into
System Settings. I don't know whether that affected the options available
elsewhere in the system, but a little experimentation yielded the following
result:
I opened System Settings, then:
Shortcuts and Gestures
Global Keyboard Shortcuts
KDE component = KDE Daemon
This had a Switch Display option, but no assigned hotkey. I just clicked on it
and entered Ctrl+F5.
Bingo.
That key combination now cycles the displays through one, the other or both.
Thanks to everyone who looked in.
Title of post edited to clarify subject matter.