VGA Output (was: Re: [Utopia] Re: Gnome Volume Mgr ==> Gnome Hardware Mgr ??)

[Pat Suwalski <pat suwalski net>]

Robert Love wrote:
> Particularly, after attending a conference this weekend, I can point out
> the dire situation with respect to external displays!

As a slight diversion from this thread: this actually seemed to work
better *last* year. Therefore, either the hardware in new laptops
handles this worse now, or the current line of software does. Last year,
the problems were usually solved by simply restarting X with the
projector plugged in, but this did not work in many cases this year.

Any theories? If software is to blame, is there a clear path we (as
distros) can use to minimize this effect?

It helps that many distros set LCD output at 60Hz by default, but the
proliferation of widescreen laptops has an adverse effect on display
timings. We saw many-a-scrolling-desktop this year.

If there are no theories, it would be really cool to set up a "test
booth" at OLS or GUADEC or some other big conference with many laptops,
where people plug in their laptops to an external video device, and
results (model, distro, output success, refresh rate, etc) are recorded.
I would be willing to do this for one day of such a conference. The
results could be extremely indicative.

--Pat