How to force clone mode with X Server 1.4.2 on iBook - X

What I have: an iBook G4 1GHz with an RV250 5c63 [Radeon Mobility 9200
M9+] video chip, and I have just upgraded to Debian Lenny, i.e., X.org
X server 1.4.2 and radeon_drv.o version 4.3.0.

What I need: I need the laptop to drive the external VGA port in clone
mode even if it does not recognize that there is something connected
there, for the following reasons:

* Most importantly, many projectors I use are not recognized by the
laptop (maybe the VGA cable is too long or something).

* Even if the laptop could recognize the projector when it is
connected, X is usually started before I connect anything
externally.

I used to get what I need with Debian Etch, i.e., X Server 7.1.1 (see
<2007Apr13.233048@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> and

for details), but since the upgrade to Lenny the iBook does not drive
the external VGA port unless it recognizes a monitor when starting X.
I also upgraded the kernel to 2.6.26.5 if that matters.

I have played around a bit with various options of the radeon driver
(DDCMode off, DefaultConnectorTable off, MacModel ibook, MacModel
powerbook-vga), but none had any effect on this behaviour.

Some of options that might be relevant (MonitorLayout, MergedFB,
MetaModes, CRT2Position) are no longer documented, and their presence
in the old xorg.conf file did not help anyway.

It appears that the following workaround works: start X with a monitor
connected, then disconnect the monitor, and move the laptop to the
lecture room (possibly going to sleep in the meantime), connect the
projector there, and give the lecture. However, that's not very
satisfactory: If I have to restart X in the meantime, I cannot display
on the projector.

Does anyone have any idea how I can force the X server to display on
the external VGA display even if it does not detect that there is
something there?

Thanks in advance,

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html

anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:
>I used to get what I need with Debian Etch, i.e., X Server 7.1.1 (see
><2007Apr13.233048@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> and
>
>for details), but since the upgrade to Lenny the iBook does not drive
>the external VGA port unless it recognizes a monitor when starting X.

I have now played around a bit with xrandr: If an external monitor is
connected and recognized by the hardware, I can enable it with

xrandr --auto

I can also disable it with

xrandr --output VGA --off

but unfortunately there is no --on option.

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html

anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:
>anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:
>>I used to get what I need with Debian Etch, i.e., X Server 7.1.1 (see
>><2007Apr13.233048@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> and
>>
>>for details), but since the upgrade to Lenny the iBook does not drive
>>the external VGA port unless it recognizes a monitor when starting X.

I have now also tried explicitly configuring for two monitors, by
modifying the Device and Monitor sections as follows:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Generic Monitor"
HorizSync 30-49
VertRefresh 56-72
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "VGA Monitor"
HorizSync 30-49
VertRefresh 56-72
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
...
Option "Monitor-VGA-0" "VGA Monitor"
Option "Monitor-LVDS" "Generic Monitor"
EndSection

While the X server sees and understands this, it still behaves as
before: if it does not see a monitor there upon startup (or xrandr
--auto), it does not output on that port.

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html

anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:
>What I have: an iBook G4 1GHz with an RV250 5c63 [Radeon Mobility 9200
>M9+] video chip, and I have just upgraded to Debian Lenny, i.e., X.org
>X server 1.4.2 and radeon_drv.o version 4.3.0.
>
>What I need: I need the laptop to drive the external VGA port in clone
>mode even if it does not recognize that there is something connected
>there
[...]
>I used to get what I need with Debian Etch, i.e., X Server 7.1.1 (see
><2007Apr13.233048@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> and
>
>for details), but since the upgrade to Lenny the iBook does not drive
>the external VGA port unless it recognizes a monitor when starting X.

After some attempts to find a way to do that with the Lenny X server
(<2008Oct9.175859@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at>
<2008Oct10.202006@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at>
<2008Oct13.144940@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at>), I finally was
successful by "downgrading" the X server to the Etch version. This was
not easy, so here is what I did:

I pinned the X server packages to stable in /etc/apt/preferences by
inserting the following lines:

Package: xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-imstt xserver-xorg-video-mach64 xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-nv xserver-xorg-video-r128 xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage xserver-xorg-video-sis xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vga x11-common
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 1001

(There may be some Lenny package names in there and some Etch package
names missing, but that's what worked for me.)

Then I used the following lines to perform the downgrade:

apt-get remove xserver-xorg
apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse x11-common

It may be possible to do it directly by having the right lines in
preferences from the start, but I only learned slowly a few things
that are not mentioned in the docs, in particular:

Pin: release a=etch

still does not work. Also:

Package: xserver-xorg*

does not work, either (but * alone does work).

And in both cases it's not at all obvious that apt understands the
preferences file differently from what I intended.

Followups set to: alt.os.linux.debian.

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html