Off-Topic??? <Fn>-<F4>, internal/external monitor switch-functionality on laptop

[Marc H. Thoben]

Hi David,

David Wiedemann wrote:
> 
> I have SuSE Professional 9.1 with XFree 4.3.99 on my laptop, a compaq 
> Armada M700.
> 
> I'm very fine (especially as with XFCE it is nice fast :-) ), but I 
> cannot use the external port. When I press <Fn>-<F4> which is suposed to 
> switch between the internal LCD and the external graphic-port, my 
> picture is for a short time moving, but nothing happens. When I have an 
> external monitor attached, nothing happens at all.

if this page http://sakeos.net/~jk/debian-Compaq-M700.html is right 
about your graphic card, you have a Ati Rage LT Pro with 8 MB RAM, just 
like me ;-)

To be honest, drivers for this card are a mess. There are a lot of 
patches and development versions out there. For me switching displays 
with the <Fn>-key stopped working, when I upgraded to a 2.6.x kernel. I 
am not as lucky as you, because here the computer totally freezes up if 
I press it ;-)

I have found a version of the driver though, which survives changing 
displays with a small util called "atitvout". With this you can switch 
display between LCD, CRT and TV. Since I'm running xfree 4.3.0 I'm not 
sure though, if the driver works with your xfree 4.3.99. You might have 
to try.

Driver from Retinal Burn (thanks to Leif L. Delgass):
http://www.retinalburn.net/linux/tvout.html

Atitvout (thanks to Lennart Poettering):
http://freshmeat.net/projects/atitvout/


If you need further help installing or setting up, mail me directly.

-- 
Best regards,
   Marc