Keyboard & display tweaks for Intel GM45 video (Solved)

[utu]

.
My pricipal difficulty with PCLinuxOS has been its handling of the
Intel GM45 video in my Dell Inspiron 1545 Laptop.
I never had such problems with other distros, so this has been a
learning experience for me.  I had two problems to solve:
1.  I want to disable my touchpad in favor of a wireless mouse; and
2.  My display is 1366x768; PCLinuxOS wants to set that to 1024x768.

Previously, I'd found or been given different solutions for KDE & LXDE
versions of PCLinuxOS for each of these two problems.
I now have single, very simple solutions for both problems that work
for both KDE & LXDE versions of PCLinuxOS.

I define two one-line programs, 15synaptics and 16display, that go into
/etc/X11/xinit.d. These are simply:

For 15synaptics:
synclient TouchpadOff=1

For 16display:
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768

Each of these, like all the other files in xinit.d, are executable with
root:root ownership.

It is hard to imagine simpler solutions than these. These now supersede
my previous .xprofile, chattr, touchpad_toggle and modeline exercises.

[horusfalcon]

Very nice!  It's good to find elegant solutions to problems like these. Well done!

[melodie]

Hi,

What is LVDS1 please ? and how is it related to your video ?

[GOTHBITES]

.
My pricipal difficulty with PCLinuxOS has been its handling of the
Intel GM45 video in my Dell Inspiron 1545 Laptop.
I never had such problems with other distros, so this has been a
learning experience for me.  I had two problems to solve:
1.  I want to disable my touchpad in favor of a wireless mouse; and
2.  My display is 1366x768; PCLinuxOS wants to set that to 1024x768.

Previously, I'd found or been given different solutions for KDE & LXDE
versions of PCLinuxOS for each of these two problems.
I now have single, very simple solutions for both problems that work
for both KDE & LXDE versions of PCLinuxOS.

I define two one-line programs, 15synaptics and 16display, that go into
/etc/X11/xinit.d. These are simply:

For 15synaptics:
synclient TouchpadOff=1

For 16display:
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768

Each of these, like all the other files in xinit.d, are executable with
root:root ownership.

It is hard to imagine simpler solutions than these. These now supersede
my previous .xprofile, chattr, touchpad_toggle and modeline exercises.

I am having trouble finding these lines to edit. or do I add the lines in question?

[djohnston]

I am having trouble finding these lines to edit. or do I add the lines in question?

They aren't lines, they're files. /etc/X11/xinit.d is a directory. He created two files, 15synaptics and 16display that go in the /etc/X11/xinit.d directory. Each file has only one line, which he lists for each file.

[utu]

@ Melodie

Greetings, Melodie.

If I just put in the command 'xrandr' on my laptop, I get the following:

[root@localhost guest]# xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1366 x 768, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS1 connected 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 194mm
   1024x768       60.0 +
   1366x768       60.0*+
   800x600        60.3     56.2 
   640x480        59.9 
VGA1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

That tells me I have four resolution options I can choose-from,
and that xrandr thinks LVDS1 is the name assigned to my display.

man xrandr provides a lot of reading material, but for my situation
'xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768' did the trick.

Glad you asked.  Cheers.



@ djohnston

Greetings, djohnston.

Right on.  Thanks for providing the answer.


@ GOTHBITES

Greetings, GOTHBITES.

My lazy way to make each of these two 'programs' was to use leafpad from a root
terminal and just copy one of the other files in the directory /etc/X11/xinit.d,
say '30dbus', delete the text that's there, add my line, 'synclient TouchpadOff=1'.
for example, and save this as '15synaptics'. This way the '15synaptics' file has
all the attributes, 'root:root and executable', if that's what they were, already.

I hope that helps. 
The explanation is ever so much more complicated than the answer.

[melodie]

utu, I got the idea ! Thank you !

[melodie]

Hi,
I would suggest this thread be placed at "tips and tricks". What do you think ?

[utu]

Hi, Melodie

I'm not sure.

One running into these problems probably thinks it's an laptop hardware problem.
I suspect the handling using xrandr infrastructure probably is applicable to
other-than-Intel hardware, but I can't verify that.

xrandr seems to have been provided to the community by Intel folks, at least the
man page, anyway.

I'm pleased anyone cares. Thanks.

[GOTHBITES]

Hi, Melodie

I'm not sure.

One running into these problems probably thinks it's an laptop hardware problem.
I suspect the handling using xrandr infrastructure probably is applicable to
other-than-Intel hardware, but I can't verify that.

xrandr seems to have been provided to the community by Intel folks, at least the
man page, anyway.

I'm pleased anyone cares. Thanks.

Oh this is a great help for me for future reference. Thank you  I am going to try again and see if I can get it right.

[pags]

Hi,

What is LVDS1 please ? and how is it related to your video ?

Here is what LVDS means.

It is most commonly used as the databus for connecting LCD screens on laptops.