AmeliaBailey
04-27-2022, 02:14 AM
TL;DR: What can I do to force Linux Mint to disregard the laptop's (dead) screen and treat the external monitor as the only monitor?
Years ago, I was given an old laptop with a cracked screen (nothing can be seen on it). It has an HDMI port so I had been able to attach an external monitor to it.
I can't remember how, but I managed to get the pre-installed Windows 7 to use the external monitor as the primary and only monitor and thus this laptop was a "desktop" for a while (USB keyboard and mouse attached, the laptop sat on the floor). After some time, I moved on and the laptop sat unused.
Today, I thought I'd try installing Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon on it; used dual-boot mode where the installer resizes the HDD and puts in a partition for Linux. The install seems to have worked, a boot menu is offered at startup and I choose Linux Mint and it boots up fine from the HDD.
The trouble is that the Linux Mint seems to be under the impression that the external monitor is the 2nd monitor and the (dead) laptop monitor is the primary and thus the taskbar and start menu [sorry I'm a Linux noob and am using Windows terms] are on it and thus not visible to me.
I can't remember how, maybe hitting control-alt-del(?), but I get a login prompt and am able to log in. However, by watching how the mouse behaves, I can tell the external monitor that I see is the secondary monitor. The mouse pointer travel is constrained by the left, upper, and lower borders of the external monitor--but it can go further to the right. I thus suspect that the "primary" monitor is on the right.
What can I do to force Linux Mint to disregard the laptop's (dead) screen and treat the external monitor as the only monitor?
I tried going into the Advanced Boot option and choosing "Generic" but Linux Minit is still treating the external monitor as the 2nd monitor.
There is a "recovery" option in the Advanced Boot choices but that gets me to a command prompt and I don't know what to do from there. Maybe some command-line wizardry can get Linux Mint to ignore the laptop's screen? Maybe editing a config file somewhere? The command prompt suggests I'm running as "root"--or is that the name of the folder it was at?
Please keep in mind I'm a noob and so any help someone kindly gives needs to be fairly explicit. :-/
Years ago, I was given an old laptop with a cracked screen (nothing can be seen on it). It has an HDMI port so I had been able to attach an external monitor to it.
I can't remember how, but I managed to get the pre-installed Windows 7 to use the external monitor as the primary and only monitor and thus this laptop was a "desktop" for a while (USB keyboard and mouse attached, the laptop sat on the floor). After some time, I moved on and the laptop sat unused.
Today, I thought I'd try installing Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon on it; used dual-boot mode where the installer resizes the HDD and puts in a partition for Linux. The install seems to have worked, a boot menu is offered at startup and I choose Linux Mint and it boots up fine from the HDD.
The trouble is that the Linux Mint seems to be under the impression that the external monitor is the 2nd monitor and the (dead) laptop monitor is the primary and thus the taskbar and start menu [sorry I'm a Linux noob and am using Windows terms] are on it and thus not visible to me.
I can't remember how, maybe hitting control-alt-del(?), but I get a login prompt and am able to log in. However, by watching how the mouse behaves, I can tell the external monitor that I see is the secondary monitor. The mouse pointer travel is constrained by the left, upper, and lower borders of the external monitor--but it can go further to the right. I thus suspect that the "primary" monitor is on the right.
What can I do to force Linux Mint to disregard the laptop's (dead) screen and treat the external monitor as the only monitor?
I tried going into the Advanced Boot option and choosing "Generic" but Linux Minit is still treating the external monitor as the 2nd monitor.
There is a "recovery" option in the Advanced Boot choices but that gets me to a command prompt and I don't know what to do from there. Maybe some command-line wizardry can get Linux Mint to ignore the laptop's screen? Maybe editing a config file somewhere? The command prompt suggests I'm running as "root"--or is that the name of the folder it was at?
Please keep in mind I'm a noob and so any help someone kindly gives needs to be fairly explicit. :-/