04-04-2020, 06:56 PM (This post was last modified: 04-04-2020, 08:41 PM by LittleWalter.
Edit Reason: Forgot the most important part.
)
Thought I'd chime in and mention that I've been using a slightly older (as in I got it 2017) Anker USB-C to HDMI adapter that I originally got for my 2016 MBP. I specifically wanted this adapter because it was the only one I could find at the time that supported 4K@60Hz; 30Hz personally gives me a headache after awhile for computer displays.
Since the nasty coffee spill onto its keyboard and the shelter-at-home mandates in my locale, I've been mostly docking the Pinebook Pro to a cheap-ish 1080p LG brand monitor along with a 2 computer USB KVM hub using the Anker adapter running Manjaro KDE. It automatically mirrors the screen and I simply turn the brightness on the laptop down and it works fine for the most part. I keep the lid open mostly since I think it doesn't work super consistently detecting the screen like my MacBook with the clam shell closed, and I can eyeball if the laptop screen is lit up. (I have a couple drilled-in IKEA particle board shelves mounted under my standing desk with plenty of clearance using galvanized steel pipe fitter tape or whatever it's called. But it's out of the way and a cheap DIY solution to clear up my desk.)
I went with about 18-inches of clearance so I could possibly put a small desktop tower under my desk, as I was eying the Dell T30 SOHO server at the time.
Edit: I forgot to mention that I haven't been able to get anything to output from the HDMI adapter other than 1080p@60Hz on either a 4K@60Hz computer monitor (doesn't work at all) and only displays 1080p@60Hz on my 4K@60Hz TV. The Manjaro display settings only shows one display and I can't change from un-mirrored mode (there's no option in UI). So it might either be me not knowing how to change the settings or just compatibility issues either with the OS or the adapter itself.
Screen resolution gets all weird.
Added screenshot of PBP standard resolution, and another where the custom resolution has been added. Does anyone understand why this happens?
Why did you set the external monitor to "Rotation: Counterclockwise"?
Or are you saying you can't get it working any other way?
Some monitors allow rotating 90 degrees, so that certain applications, like print publishing, can better represent the content, (a page of paper). Thus, many OSes now support rotating monitors logicaly to support the physical rotation.
Screen resolution gets all weird.
Added screenshot of PBP standard resolution, and another where the custom resolution has been added. Does anyone understand why this happens?
Why did you set the external monitor to "Rotation: Counterclockwise"?
Or are you saying you can't get it working any other way?
Some monitors allow rotating 90 degrees, so that certain applications, like print publishing, can better represent the content, (a page of paper). Thus, many OSes now support rotating monitors logicaly to support the physical rotation.
Unless the example in the link is for counterclockwise, which I did not get the impression it was, then I didn't. I've simply replaced the width and height for what my monitor wants, and it showed up as "counterclockwise" in the display settings. My monitor is not to be rotated in other words.
Do you know how to remove this option from the display settings for a monitor perhaps?
Screen resolution gets all weird.
Added screenshot of PBP standard resolution, and another where the custom resolution has been added. Does anyone understand why this happens?
Why did you set the external monitor to "Rotation: Counterclockwise"?
Or are you saying you can't get it working any other way?
Some monitors allow rotating 90 degrees, so that certain applications, like print publishing, can better represent the content, (a page of paper). Thus, many OSes now support rotating monitors logicaly to support the physical rotation.
Unless the example in the link is for counterclockwise, which I did not get the impression it was, then I didn't. I've simply replaced the width and height for what my monitor wants, and it showed up as "counterclockwise" in the display settings. My monitor is not to be rotated in other words.
Do you know how to remove this option from the display settings for a monitor perhaps?
I'd try simply changing the menu option. Whence changed, it should save the change for future logins.
If that does not work, I don't have any information handy on how to force it to be un-rotated.
Screen resolution gets all weird.
Added screenshot of PBP standard resolution, and another where the custom resolution has been added. Does anyone understand why this happens?
Why did you set the external monitor to "Rotation: Counterclockwise"?
Or are you saying you can't get it working any other way?
Some monitors allow rotating 90 degrees, so that certain applications, like print publishing, can better represent the content, (a page of paper). Thus, many OSes now support rotating monitors logicaly to support the physical rotation.
Unless the example in the link is for counterclockwise, which I did not get the impression it was, then I didn't. I've simply replaced the width and height for what my monitor wants, and it showed up as "counterclockwise" in the display settings. My monitor is not to be rotated in other words.
Do you know how to remove this option from the display settings for a monitor perhaps?
I'd try simply changing the menu option. Whence changed, it should save the change for future logins.
If that does not work, I don't have any information handy on how to force it to be un-rotated.
For some reason there are only the clockwise and counterclockwise options.
If I do choose to set the resolution I get the following error (cant copy it, have uploaded a screenshot of the dialog Screen3).
After that the screen goes dark, and if I go into the display settings dialog again the monitor is "flipped" off, and after turning it on again on the panel in the dialog I now have a bunch of sub 1920x1080 resolutions which were not there before (only the 1920x1080). I tried adding the mode with xrandr with 60hz, but it made no difference.
I also tried (although don't know ifts correct) setting the mode via terminal:
$ sudo xrandr --output "DP-1" --mode "2560x1080_60.00" --rotate normal
xrandr: screen cannot be larger than 4096x4096 (desired size 4480x1080)
Last time I checked 4096x4096 is smaller than 2560x1080 so I have no idea what thats about.
4480x1080 is completely wrong resolution for my screen, but none the less I tried setting it. This actually adds the screen as "normal" and not counterclockwise, but gives me error of "screen4" attached file.
If anyone else has any ideas on how to proceed, I'm all ears.
@GloriousCoffee, looking at the math, if we add up your built in screen and external screen horizantal sizes, 1920 + 2560 = 4480.
I sumrise from this, that it's not possible to use a combonation of screen sizes greater than 4096 in either X or Y directions. So if your built in display is 1920 across, (which it is for our Pinebook Pros), and you want to use an external display that is 2560 across, it's not supported by the graphics in the Pinebook Pro.
Remember, the SoC is not a high end one, and neither is the built in graphics.
That said, it may be possible to treat your second monitor as a independant X-Windows display. Thus, having it's own 4096 x 4096 limit. It would not allow drag and drop between monitors. I've used such before, but not recently.
Anyone else have thoughts?
If we do "figure it out", and it is a hard limit of combined monitor sizes of 4096 x 4096, we can add that limitation to the Wiki.
(04-07-2020, 02:23 PM)Arwen Wrote: @GloriousCoffee, looking at the math, if we add up your built in screen and external screen horizantal sizes, 1920 + 2560 = 4480.
I sumrise from this, that it's not possible to use a combonation of screen sizes greater than 4096 in either X or Y directions. So if your built in display is 1920 across, (which it is for our Pinebook Pros), and you want to use an external display that is 2560 across, it's not supported by the graphics in the Pinebook Pro.
Remember, the SoC is not a high end one, and neither is the built in graphics.
That said, it may be possible to treat your second monitor as a independant X-Windows display. Thus, having it's own 4096 x 4096 limit. It would not allow drag and drop between monitors. I've used such before, but not recently.
Anyone else have thoughts?
If we do "figure it out", and it is a hard limit of combined monitor sizes of 4096 x 4096, we can add that limitation to the Wiki.
I wouldn' t blame it on the SoC.
I have connected a Samsung Chromebook Plus with the same SoC to a 4K TV with the screen on the Chromebook active and that worked fine.
And I assume it really was in 4K, as the mouse pointer felt like moving very slow, as 4K is much more surface.
The limitation is in the software, not the hardware.
(04-07-2020, 02:23 PM)Arwen Wrote: @GloriousCoffee, looking at the math, if we add up your built in screen and external screen horizantal sizes, 1920 + 2560 = 4480.
I sumrise from this, that it's not possible to use a combonation of screen sizes greater than 4096 in either X or Y directions. So if your built in display is 1920 across, (which it is for our Pinebook Pros), and you want to use an external display that is 2560 across, it's not supported by the graphics in the Pinebook Pro.
Remember, the SoC is not a high end one, and neither is the built in graphics.
That said, it may be possible to treat your second monitor as a independant X-Windows display. Thus, having it's own 4096 x 4096 limit. It would not allow drag and drop between monitors. I've used such before, but not recently.
Anyone else have thoughts?
If we do "figure it out", and it is a hard limit of combined monitor sizes of 4096 x 4096, we can add that limitation to the Wiki.
I didn't even think of it as adding the two widths together, but that makes total sense now. Thank you.
By independent X-Window display, do you mean that the PBP screen would be turned off and the 21:9 monitor would act as the "main" screen instead of the PBP screen? If that is the case, I would be very interested to see if there is a solution for it.
@GloriousCoffee, in the case of independant displays, it's possible that both would be on. When you launch a program, it would default to the :0 display. And you would manually select launching a program on to the :1 display. Hard to explain except with shell commands;
DISPLAY=:1 libreoffice &
DISPLAY=:0 firefox &
It may be @jiyong is correct, the 4096 x 4096 apparent limitation may be a software limit. Quite reasonable for a laptop, until you add in an external display.
Anyway, I don't know the answer to this issue.
I do want to remind people that as far as the Pinebook Pro goes, it's early days. The PBP has been out maybe 6 months. We finally have lots of Linux distributions' support, the Wiki is coming along good and we now have many tested and known to work peripherals. Unlike the "big boys", our PBP is a community driven project / product. So, we are the ones to figure it out, not like the "big boys" do before they release a product.
(04-11-2020, 02:49 PM)Arwen Wrote: @GloriousCoffee, in the case of independant displays, it's possible that both would be on. When you launch a program, it would default to the :0 display. And you would manually select launching a program on to the :1 display. Hard to explain except with shell commands;
DISPLAY=:1 libreoffice &
DISPLAY=:0 firefox &
It may be @jiyong is correct, the 4096 x 4096 apparent limitation may be a software limit. Quite reasonable for a laptop, until you add in an external display.
Anyway, I don't know the answer to this issue.
I do want to remind people that as far as the Pinebook Pro goes, it's early days. The PBP has been out maybe 6 months. We finally have lots of Linux distributions' support, the Wiki is coming along good and we now have many tested and known to work peripherals. Unlike the "big boys", our PBP is a community driven project / product. So, we are the ones to figure it out, not like the "big boys" do before they release a product.
Having to manually send each program to the monitor would be a pure hassle, but thank you for elaborating.
I have full respect for it still being as you say, early days for the PBP. All in all, I think everyone who is working with it is doing and have done a great job so far. Its really a wonderful little computer, even if I can't use it with my 21:9 screen.
If it is a software limitation, could there maybe be a fix for it in the future?
Are updates for the PBP served through apt with upgrade or how does that work anyway? I just installed regular debian, but unsure how fixes specifically for the PBP are served.
so I have no idea what thats about.