Setting up a second monitor as the primary one in Gnome 3 (Ubuntu 11.10))

Gnome 3 (at least under Ubuntu 11.10) seems to have been shipped with a number of features missing. For example:

1. No easy way to change the screensaver (follow this: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/change-screensaver-ubuntu-1110/).
2. No out-of-the-box way to change the system fonts (you have to use gnome-tweak-tool)
3. No out-of-the-box way to change the theme settings (follow this: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/10/how-to-install-gnome-shell-themes-in-ubuntu-11-10/)

For me, the most annoying one is the lack of a user-friendly way to set any second/external monitor as your primary one (i.e. where the Gnome bar/task bar will appear). 

You can set the orientation of the monitors in the settings, and how you want them aligned but that's about it. Here is a screenshot of the Display settings dialogue: 

Long story short, open a terminal and enter the following:

$xrandr --output VGA-0 --primary

Root is not needed. 

If you don't know how your external port is called (VGA-0 in my case), you can press Tab after the "--output" to see the list of interfaces X recognises. Simply replace VGA-0 with what you see fit.

Ubuntu 10.10: Mimo UM-720S single screen setup

I recently needed to temporarily put a screen on a completely headless system (no graphics card installed), so I decided to use a MIMO UM-720s which was lying around (almost literally).

Naturally, was not as easy at it initially seemed...

First of all, this guide is heavily based on the one written by Andrew Simpson, which can be found here.

SECTION A: Getting it to work

Autostart script changes for Calibre 0.7.27

In version 0.7.27 of calibre, the "auto reload" command has been unbundled from "--develop". As a result, the script in the previous post has to be updated. Only the script changes, the rest of the procedure is the same.

The "DEMON_ARGS" line changes from

  DAEMON_ARGS="--develop --with-library=$CONTENT --pidfile=$PIDFILE --port=$PORT --max-cover=$MAX_COVER --daemonize"   

to

 DAEMON_ARGS="--auto-reload --with-library=$CONTENT --pidfile=$PIDFILE --port=$PORT --max-cover=$MAX_COVER --daemonize" 

The full updated script can be found after the break:

Getting Calibre Server to run at Boot in Ubuntu 10.04

Calibre is a multi-platform eBook management software which supports multiple eBook reader and formats.

It also contains a simple eBook distribution server which can be accessed both via a web browser and an OPDS compatible client.

In this article I will set-up the Calibre server to start at boot time and serve books.

Even though Ubuntu 10.4 has Calibre in its repositories, I prefer to download and install the latest version as Calibre updates quite often with both compatibility fixes and new functionality.

The following procedure can be completely done over command line, on a headless system.

To do this, enter the following in a terminal:

 sudo apt-get install xdg-utils  
 sudo python -c "import urllib2; exec urllib2.urlopen('http://status.calibre-ebook.com/linux_installer').read(); main()"  

And follow the on-screen instructions. In case something goes wrong, go here and see if the instructions have changed.

There has been a report (by Emil in the comments) that the following are also needed in Ubuntu 10.10:

 sudo apt-get install xdg-utils imagemagick python-imaging python-mechanize python-lxml python-dateutil python-cssutils python-beautifulsoup python-dnspython python-poppler libpodofo-utils libwmf-bin python-chm   

After installing Calibre, it is time to set it up for boot start up.

Enter the following:

 cd /etc/init.d  
 sudo pico calibre  

In the editor which opens up, copy and paste the following script, making changes as needed (check the top 20-30 lines). UPDATE: if you are sing Calibre 0.7.27+ you need the script from here instead.

Ubuntu 10.4 on a Toshiba SP6000

Installing Ubuntu 10.4 on a Toshiba SP6000 is actually quite painless.

Essentially everything seems to work out of the box, except the SD card reader (for which there are no drivers as far as I know) and a small resolution problem.I haven't tried the built-in modem either, but the third-party driver manager does install something in Ubuntu.

Display resolution fix:

The device will boot fine, but the X server will not detect the fact that the laptop supports 1024x768 and will only offer a maximum of 800x600.

This can be changed by editing the xorg file, but odds are that you won't have one under /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

To fix this, do the following. If you have an xorg.conf file, skip this bit:

1. Change into a TTY pressing CTRL+ALT+1 or 2 or 3 or ...
2. Log in using an account with sudo privileges.
3. Type 'sudo service gdm stop'. this will kill the X server
4. Type 'sudo Xorg -configure'. this will create an xorg.conf file in your home directory.
5. Type 'sudo mv ~/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf' to copy the file to the correct position.

Edit the file (using nano for example - don't forget to sudo it!) and change the following:

Add the HorizSync and VertRefresh lines to the "Monitor" section to make it look like this:

 Section "Monitor"  
   Identifier "Monitor0"  
   VendorName "Monitor Vendor"  
   ModelName "Monitor Model"  
   HorizSync 31-60  
   VertRefresh 50-75  
 EndSection  

Similarly, add the modes lines to the display subsection of the screen:

 SubSection "Display"  
   Depth 24  
   Modes "1024x768"  
 EndSubsection  

Start the X server again (sudo service gdm start) and you should be done.

TTY resolution fix:

A second problem (which you might have noticed if you followed the guide above) is that the TTY display is a bit weird.

To fix it, edit the /etc/defaults/grub file and add/edit the following two lines:

 GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x768  
 GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=1024x768x32  

Afterwards, recreate the GRUB by typing "sudo configure-grub" and restart to see it work.