[SOLVED] conditional xrandr command in .xinitrc

Question

Hi,
I've got a 1366x768 laptop screen and a 1280x1024 external monitor hooked up via VGA. When I start awesome WM, my VGA one isn't recognized automatically, so I've added the following to my .xinitrc:
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024
There are two inelegant but rather harmless things about this solution: when my external monitor is not hooked up, I get a minor error in tty1 (no big deal); and when my external monitor is hooked up and my laptop lid is closed, it's a blank screen (not a huge deal, but I'd prefer it be off completely).
What I would rather have in my .xinitrc is something like:
if VGA1 is present, then do
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024
xrandr --output LVDS1 --off
else do nothing
But I'm not sure how to implement the "if" clause.
Until now, this wasn't necessary... but now that I've changed the default awesome wallpaper, two wallpapers of different sizes show up, one on top the other, when I start X. To remove the smaller one, I need to turn off LVDS1 (laptop output).
Thanks to anyone who can help!
Last edited by brianb (2012-02-17 03:25:41)

Answer 1

In that case my simple approach would need to be ammended a bit (awk or sed in place of grep), but I've never seen the disconnected lines on any of my systems.  I wonder where the difference comes from.  BrianB, if you do not get the disconnected listings, my shorthand should work, as long as you know it may be a shortcut that may someday 'break'.
I've been using the grep test for quite some time though.
if [[ "$(xrandr | awk '/^VGA/ { print \$2 }')" == "connected" ]]; then
Should work for the more complex case, though the escaping of the '$' may need improvement, I haven't tested this version.
Last edited by Trilby (2012-02-17 03:02:42)