I use arch linux with i3-gaps on an old w520 I saved from being recycled. This computer and
environment has truly helped me increase my efficiency. The downside, is that everything has
to be manually configured. I do not mind this at all, however, because it has helped me
understand how computers do certain things. If you were to just plug in the vga cord on a
computer running i3wm, nothing would happen. You would then run xrandr to see if the vga
connection even shows up and you will realize it has not. This is because there is no
program running in the background to detect these display changes. You have to manually
start the VGA output in xrandr. So, you run
xrandr --output VGA-1 --mode 1024x768
and find that now it works, but it looks really wierd. You try scaling the display and
shifting it but find no success. Why is this?
If we take a look at a windows computer, or even one running an actual DE like gnome,
we can see that the screen resolution for both the output screen and the laptop
display both change. In fact they set themselves to the same resolution as one another
This seems like a simple idea, but unless you are actually
paying attention when you plug in a vga cable, you do not really notice it. What
I ended up doing to solve this problem was writing 2 small scripts. One I run when
I plug in a vga output and another when I remove the vga output.
To activate it, I use xrandr --output LVDS-1-1 --mode 1024x768 --output VGA-0 --mode 1024x768.
To disable it, I use xrandr --output LVDS-1-1 --mode 1920x1080 --output VGA-0 --off.
One thing I did notice is that the script for turning on the vga output will not work
until you run xrandr on its own. It may have something with letting xrandr try and
detect the new connection.
There is probably a method to automate this process, but until I figure it out,
this is what I will do. I only use vga occasionally to test projector and smartboard
functionality after a repair.