Dual monitor setup, both connected, want only one enabled, settings lost after reboot

[veroslav]

I am running Kubuntu 12.10 and have a dual monitor setup (HP main LCD monitor + Philips LCD TV).
I've installed propriatary nVidia drivers.
At the moment, I manually connect the TV whenever I want to watch a movie and disconnect it when I am done.
I am forced to do this because the TwinView configuration I do in nvidia-settings is lost on every reboot.
If I just let the TV stay connected to the computer, on the following reboot I only see an empty desktop instead of login screen and I am unable to login.
At this point I am forced to drop to TTY console and reboot while disconnecting the TV again. This way I get the regular login screen.

Ideally, I would like the TV to always stay physically connected but disabled, so that only HP monitor is used when I am not
watching movies, but so that I can easily change to TwinView from nvidia-settings whenever I want to do that. I want to not have
to insert and connect the cable manually each time I want to do this.

What I've tried:
1. Made changes in KScreen (I believe that is the correct name) so that only HP monitor is used and is primary output, while
TV is disabled. I saved the changes, but on the reboot I get the empty, wallpaper only, login screen and I am unable to login.
2. Launched nvidia-settings as root (kdesudo nvidia-settings), connected the TV, and saved the configuration (TV disabled, HP primary)
to /etc/X11/xorg.config.d/xorg.conf. The file was not present before it got created. On the next reboot, I've got a black screen instead
of login.

What should I do in order to achieve this set-up:

1. HP monitor always connected, active, and primary display
2. TV always connected, disabled, and only enabled manually from within nvidia-settings when I want to watch a movie?

Thank you in advance.

Kind Regards,
Veroslav

[Buddlespit]

I would advise against using KScreen (or whatever) to adjust your monitors if you're using the proprietary nvidia drivers, they seem to conflict with each other. But you can't disable or uninstall kscreen either. Go figure.
I am running a dual monitor setup using twinview in nvidia-settings.

To test, I've set my second monitor as a separate X screen, saved the xorg.conf, rebooted, told vlc to always use screen 1 (I'm offered 0 and 1, 1 being the second screen.... go figure) in kwin (alt-F3 in application title bar) and rebooted again. My login stuff is on screen 0 and screen 1 is blank until I'm completely logged in. I double clicked a movie and vlc opened on screen 1 and played properly.

Maybe I'm missing your issue?

[veroslav]

Hi,

thank you for your reply and I apologise for somewhat late reply.

How should I set up KScreen do you think? Should I just disable everything altogether in there and do all of the changes in nvidia-settings?

If I understand your setup correctly, you have both of the screens ON all the time? Even though you are using one of them only when watching
videos in VLC?

What I want is something similar, but instead I would like to have the TV connected to the computer through HDMI but NOT active (no signal sent
to TV and set to 'Disabled' in nvidia-settings). At the moment, if I connect the TV and don't do any configurations in nvidia-settings and then
reboot, I only get a blank login screen showing only desktop wallpaper.

May I ask where do you save your generated xorg.conf file? As I said, I tried to do the same but I've got black screen on reboot with following
configuration in nvidia-settings:

LCD Monitor (Primary Screen, Separate X, enabled)
TV LCD (Disabled)

and xorg.conf saved at /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/xorg.conf

I would like to avoid to have both of the screens on all the time, as it is seldomly I watch a movie. And when I would like to do that, I want to
be able to just launch nvidia-settings and enable the TV screen (Twin View) without saving anything to xorg.conf. I want it to be active only
for that session while I am watching the movie. On shutdown, I don't mind it getting disabled again and on the next reboot having only HP monitor on,
while the TV is still connected but disabled.

Main reason for this is that I don't want to insert the HDMI cable each time I want to watch something on tv and to unplug it afterwards, as leaving
it inserted gives a blank login screen, as described above.

Sorry for the long response, please do tell me if you need any more details.

Thank you for the help, much appreciated!

Kind Regards,
Veroslav

[oshunluvr]

IMO, I would set up xorg.conf correctly for both screens, then use xrandr commands to turn the TV screen off and on.

You could put an xrandr command to turn off the TV in /etc/X11/Xstartup and then write a small script to turn it on whenever you want. Also, write a launch script for vlc (or whatever video program you use) that both turns on the TV and turns it off when exited.

You could even write a little servicemenu that could offer TV on/off options by right-clicking the desktop.

What a fun project!