Laptop Dual External Monitors Desktop issues

[strycat]

So I attach two monitors (both Dell P2210) to my Dell Latitude E6520 (Graphics Card: Intel® HD Graphics 3000) running Kubuntu 11.10. I'm having this weird issue. kubuntu seems to recognize the monitors. However the area that would normally be on the laptop's screen is also present. It is squished to the far left side. It seems to be a separate zone as windows are cut off as they enter it. Also I am unable to set a different background per monitor. Finally there are two "New Activity" buttons at the top of the far right screen.

Attached is a screenshot of my desktop. Please someone help.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Going into K->Settings->System Settings->Workspace Behavior->Workspace and switching from Desktop to Netbook, applying the change and then going back into and switching back from Netbook to Desktop seems to have cleared out the issue. While solved I suspect something deeper is wrong somewhere.

Edit: Ok yes something was very wrong somewhere. Shortly after I did the above the panel crashed. It would not return. After a reboot, I was left with a completely blank desktop. No panel. No activity button. Nothing. The windows were still running as you could Alt-Tab between them, but they would never appear either. I finally had to do a Ctrl-Alt-F5 and remove the .kde directory. Now it is doing again the original problem. Not sure what to do next.

[SecretCode]

Hi
I can't see clearly what's going on - could you perhaps post a larger copy of the screenshot - and perhaps with some marks on it to show where the "squished to the far left side" part is, etc?

What does KDE think you have, at System Settings > Monitor and Display > Size & Orientation? What do you get when you click "Identify Outputs" on that settings screen? - And when you click "Identify all displays" on the Multiple Monitors settings screen?

[strycat]

Thanks for the reply.

I figured out I have to run xrandr when KDE starts from a post over at the KDE forums.
http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f...217119#p217119

Basically put this in .kde/env

#!/bin/bash

# from http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=88659
# this goes in .kde/env

myvar="$(xrandr -q)"
if [[ $myvar == *"VGA1 connected"* ]]
then
# assuming if one is connected that both are...
xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto;
xrandr --output LVDS1 --off;
xrandr --output VGA1 --auto;
xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1680x1050 --right-of VGA1;

else
xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto;
fi