Display Defaults
I’ve been running Arch on my work laptop and it’s pretty much working. However, I have a nice external monitor on my desk, and I keep having to manually configure the output to it with arandr. Here’s how I made it configure itself by default when X starts.
First, make the layout
Arranging monitors is one of the few places where I prefer using a GUI over the command line. I use arandr, a graphical xrandr frontend, to organize my monitors.
Once the displays are set as desired, I go to layout -> save as and save it as ~/.screenlayout/default.sh. That file contains:
#!/bin/sh
xrandr --output VIRTUAL1 --off --output eDP1 --mode 2560x1440 --pos 0x1200
--rotate normal --output DP1 --off --output HDMI2 --mode 1920x1200 --pos
312x0 --rotate normal --output HDMI1 --off --output DP2 --off
Then, execute the command on login
Since arandr outputs the xrandr command needed to set the layout correctly, I took the lazy way out and just dumped the xrandr incantation from ~/.screenlayout/default.sh into the start of ~/.xinitrc. I might someday come back and replace it with a more sophisticated script to detect whether the second monitor is plugged in, but it’s good enough for now.
That’s it!
Yet I had to dig that knowledge out of the forums and xrandr wiki page. But seriously, arandr and .xinitrc are all it takes. It was much easier than I expected.