There are actually a few things Windows does that I actually would like Linux to do. As I run into these inconveniences, I eventually (attempt to) solve them. The latest in this saga is monitor hotplugging. Windows guys undock their laptops and magically have everything move to one screen; they dock the laptop later and have the external monitor fired up and ready to go.

Primitive Solution

Luckily for me, the newer Kepler-based Optimus laptops aren’t completely broken in Linux. All the outputs are hooked up to the Intel card, and the nVidia card provides 3D acceleration via black magic. Given this physical connection, xrandr Just Works (tm), and my initial solution to this problem was a set of aliases:

24on='xrandr --output DP3 --right-of LVDS1 --mode 1920x1200'
30on='xrandr --output DP3 --right-of LVDS1 --mode 2560x1600'
ext_off='xrandr --output DP3 --off'

I could have condensed the ‘on’ aliases to both use –auto rather than the –mode switches, but that is neither here nor there.

Evolving

Today, the straw broke the camel’s back, and I was bound and determined to automate this. After a bit of research, I came across a question on StackOverflow that started me down the right path. After hitting up the udev documentation, I had a solution using a udev rule:

ACTION=="change", SUBSYSTEM=="drm", ENV{HOTPLUG}=="1", RUN+="/bin/su -l sarumont -c /home/sarumont/.common/base/bin/display_switch"

to fire a script:

#!/bin/sh
 
connected=`cat /sys/class/drm/card0-DP-3/status`
 
export DISPLAY=":0.0"
if test $connected = "connected"; then
	xrandr --output DP3 --right-of LVDS1 --auto
else
	xrandr --output DP3 --off
fi

And Voila! My external monitor is automagically enabled when I plug in and disabled when I go mobile.