Saving monitor settings?

Long story short (that is: do what Nicolas Bernaerts suggests, but I spare you the details): monitors configuration is actually saved in ~/.config/monitors.xml, but it's not applied at startup/login.

The steps to overcome this are:

Log in with the wrong monitors configuration.

Remove current monitor configuration:

cd .config
mv monitors.xml{,.bak}

Use the Displays application to arrange the monitors as you wish (I have one side monitor rotated counterclockwise).

Once you press Apply, a new monitors.xml is created.

Now, download and make executable the script and the launcher that force the monitor configuration based on the newly created config file:

$ sudo wget -O /usr/local/sbin/update-monitor-position https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NicolasBernaerts/ubuntu-scripts/master/ubuntugnome/update-monitor-position
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/update-monitor-position
$ sudo wget -O /usr/share/applications/update-monitor-position.desktop https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NicolasBernaerts/ubuntu-scripts/master/ubuntugnome/update-monitor-position.desktop
$ sudo chmod +x /usr/share/applications/update-monitor-position.desktop

At this point, the monitors' configuration can be fixed by launching the update monitor position application.

If you want this to be automatic, simply add a startup application, with the following entries:

• Name: Update Monitors Position
• Command: update-monitor-position 5
• Comment: Force monitors position 5 seconds after login

Configuration for all your monitors - hot-plugged or not - should be stored in $HOME/.config/monitors.xml by the xrandr plugin for gnome-settings-daemon, which is what actually applies the configuration you make in the Monitors capplet.

Since it seems that this isn't working properly for everyone, there's clearly a bug somewhere. Urgh.

First three steps to connect your external monitor the way you want and 4th is to save the settings.

1. Connect your external monitor and check its supported resolution:

   xrandr -q
   

2. Give the following command (This will disable your laptop monitor):

   xrandr --output LVDS1 --off --output TV1 --off --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal
   

3. If you want both laptop and external enabled:

   xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode yyyyXzzzz --pos 0x0 --rotate normal --output TV1 --off --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal
   

   (yyyyXzzzz - your laptop resolution.)

   The above configuration will clone your screen. Play with "--right-of / --left-of" option if you want.

4. If you need this settings while login, add the checks in /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45custom_xrandr-settings (You might need to create one).

   xrandr |grep VGA1 | grep " connected " | if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then xrandr --output LVDS1 --off --output TV1 --off --output VGA1 --mode 1280x1024 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal  #Change the way u need ; fi
   

At office, I have 3 monitors on my laptop, and 2 at home. Two of office monitors are set vertical, while other monitors are at normal orientation.

A. monitors.xml is in ~/.config.

1. Delete it
2. Set the display at office setup
3. Rename just created "monitors.xml" to "monitors-office.xml".

B. Get shell script, "update-monitor-position".

1. Change the "MONITOR_XML" definition, "monitors.xml" to "monitors-office.xml".

2. Save it as "update-monitor-position-office", in executable path (/usr/local/sbin/).

3. Touch the permission -> executable by "Me".

C. Get desktop shortcut, "update-monitor-position.desktop"

1. Change "Exec" definition, "update-monitor-position" to
   "update-monitor-position-office".
2. Save it as "update-monitor-position-office.desktop"
3. Touch the permission -> executable by "Me".

update-monitor-position-office.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=update-monitor-position-office
Hidden=false
NoDisplay=false
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true
Name[en_US]=Office Monitors Position
Name=Office Monitors Position
Comment[en_US]=Force monitors position from monitor-office.xml
Comment=Force monitors position from monitor-office.xml
Icon=display

Shell script, update-monitor-position-office

#!/bin/bash
# -------------------------------------------------
#  Get monitors configuration from monitor.xml and apply it for current user session.
#  In case of multiple definitions in monitor.xml only first one is used.
#
#  See http://bernaerts.dyndns.org/linux/74-ubuntu/309-ubuntu-dual-display-monitor-position-lost
#  for instructions
#
#  Parameters :
#    $1 : waiting time in sec. before forcing configuration (optional)
#
#  Revision history :
#    19/04/2014, V1.0 - Creation by N. Bernaerts
#    10/07/2014, V1.1 - Wait 5 seconds for X to fully initialize
#    01/09/2014, V1.2 - Correct NULL file bug (thanks to Ivan Harmady) and handle rotation
#    07/10/2014, V1.3 - Add monitors size and rate handling (idea from jescalante)
#    08/10/2014, V1.4 - Handle primary display parameter
#    08/12/2014, V1.5 - Waiting time in seconds becomes a parameter
# -------------------------------------------------

# monitor.xml path
MONITOR_XML="$HOME/.config/monitors-office.xml"

# get number of declared monitors
NUM=$(xmllint --xpath 'count(//monitors/configuration['1']/output)' $MONITOR_XML)

# loop thru declared monitors to create the command line parameters
for (( i=1; i<=$NUM; i++)); do
  # get attributes of current monitor (name and x & y positions)
  NAME=$(xmllint --xpath 'string(//monitors/configuration['1']/output['$i']/@name)' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  POS_X=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/output['$i']/x/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  POS_Y=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/output['$i']/y/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  ROTATE=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/output['$i']/rotation/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  WIDTH=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/output['$i']/width/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  HEIGHT=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/output['$i']/height/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  RATE=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/output['$i']/rate/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  PRIMARY=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/output['$i']/primary/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)

  # if position is defined for current monitor, add its position and orientation to command line parameters
  [ -n "$POS_X" ] && PARAM_ARR=("${PARAM_ARR[@]}" "--output" "$NAME" "--pos" "${POS_X}x${POS_Y}" "--fbmm" "${WIDTH}x${HEIGHT}" "--rate" "$RATE" "--rotate" "$ROTATE")

  # if monitor is defined as primary, adds it to command line parameters
  [ "$PRIMARY" = "yes" ] && PARAM_ARR=("${PARAM_ARR[@]}" "--primary")
done

# if needed, wait for some seconds (for X to finish initialisation)
[ -n "$1" ] && sleep $1

# position all monitors
xrandr "${PARAM_ARR[@]}"

I prefer to run this script from a terminal since I open one first after login.

First login with the bad configuration - monitors not placed correctly:

cd ~/.config
mv ~/.config/monitors.xml{,.bak}

Now set your monitors with system settings to create a new ~/.config/monitors.xml file with proper settings.

Copy Nicolas Bernaerts's fixed script from my repo: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alextomko/monitors/master/monitors and put it in a path to run from terminal.

$ ls -l ~/bin
# if you don't have this directory then create it - do not be logged in as root here.

$ mkdir /home/$USER/bin

$ echo $PATH
# should show /home/username/bin if the dir existed or if you had to create.

$ wget -P ~/bin https://raw.githubusercontent.com/alextomko/monitors/master/monitors
$ chmod +x ~/bin/monitors

# Log out, lock, reboot or whatever it takes to make monitor settings lost for you and run the script.
$ monitors

Ubuntu 12.04 remembers hot-plugged monitor settings. But they are only applied when you reopen the System configuration > Displays applet. This is the case for me, at least, and this is definitively a bug.

jay's answer almost worked for me, but I needed to do a couple extra steps. I'd make this a comment on his answer but I don't have the reputation.

In the file update-monitor-position-office:

1. My version of bash (4.3.48) complained about the lack of a space following "i++" on line 28.
2. My version of xrandr (1.5) did not recognize the "--fbmm" option on line 40. I had to change this to "--mode". This was hard to diagnose because xrandr did not actually give me an error, it just executed the command without doing anything.

No, there's no way to save configurations on hot-plugged monitors. If you plug in before boot, GNOME should remember the configuration on each boot on a per-device basis (ie, connecting to your monitor at work versus the one at home).

Thank you for pointing me at the ~/.config/monitors.xml file.

I found that there was one created at the time I specified the layout I wanted, and also some kind of back-up, monitors.xml~ which differed in just the characteristic I wanted to change.

If I simply eliminated this backup file, I found that my newly-created one took effect the next time I restarted my machine. No need to download any script.

I guess, if there had been a bug, it has since been fixed.

Also guessing, I'm surmising the backup file got re-instated somehow, but with it gone, the primary file remains the only file in effect.

This worked both on a setup running Ubu 16.04 and one running 19.10

Again, thanks for pointing me at the file.

Note that in Ubuntu 18.04, the monitors.xml layout seems to be different, so some of the xpath queries don't work anymore. I adapted the shell script posted by @jay to work accordingly:

#!/bin/bash
# -------------------------------------------------
#  Get monitors configuration from monitor.xml and apply it for current user session.
#  In case of multiple definitions in monitor.xml only first one is used.
#
#  See http://bernaerts.dyndns.org/linux/74-ubuntu/309-ubuntu-dual-display-monitor-position-lost
#  for instructions
#
#  Parameters :
#    $1 : waiting time in sec. before forcing configuration (optional)
#
#  Revision history :
#    19/04/2014, V1.0 - Creation by N. Bernaerts
#    10/07/2014, V1.1 - Wait 5 seconds for X to fully initialize
#    01/09/2014, V1.2 - Correct NULL file bug (thanks to Ivan Harmady) and handle rotation
#    07/10/2014, V1.3 - Add monitors size and rate handling (idea from jescalante)
#    08/10/2014, V1.4 - Handle primary display parameter
#    08/12/2014, V1.5 - Waiting time in seconds becomes a parameter
#    06/17/2020, V1.6 - Adapted to new monitors version = 2 (see https://askubuntu.com/a/993592/93077)
# -------------------------------------------------

# monitor.xml path
MONITOR_XML="$HOME/.config/monitors-office.xml"

# get number of declared monitors
NUM=$(xmllint --xpath 'count(//monitors/configuration['1']/logicalmonitor)' $MONITOR_XML)
# loop thru declared monitors to create the command line parameters
for (( i=1; i<=$NUM; i++)); do
  # get attributes of current monitor (name and x & y positions)
  NAME=$(xmllint --xpath 'string(//monitors/configuration['1']/logicalmonitor['$i']//connector/text())' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  POS_X=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/logicalmonitor['$i']/x/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  POS_Y=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/logicalmonitor['$i']/y/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  #ROTATE=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/logicalmonitor['$i']/rotation/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  WIDTH=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/logicalmonitor['$i']//width/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  HEIGHT=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/logicalmonitor['$i']//height/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  RATE=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/logicalmonitor['$i']//rate/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  PRIMARY=$(xmllint --xpath '//monitors/configuration['1']/logicalmonitor['$i']/primary/text()' $MONITOR_XML 2>/dev/null)
  # if position is defined for current monitor, add its position and orientation to command line parameters
  [ -n "$POS_X" ] && PARAM_ARR=("${PARAM_ARR[@]}" "--output" "$NAME" "--pos" "${POS_X}x${POS_Y}" "--fbmm" "${WIDTH}x${HEIGHT}" "--rate" "$RATE" "--rotate" "normal")
  # if monitor is defined as primary, adds it to command line parameters
  [ "$PRIMARY" = "yes" ] && PARAM_ARR=("${PARAM_ARR[@]}" "--primary")
done
# if needed, wait for some seconds (for X to finish initialisation)
[ -n "$1" ] && sleep $1

# position all monitors
xrandr "${PARAM_ARR[@]}"