How to unstick mirroring monitors ?

External monitor (a Dell) was working just fine (separate view) with default laptop.
After temporarily de-activating the laptop one, now all it can do is mirror both or just have one at a time.

Even if you go into settings/display?

As far as i can see, there are no options to "mirror displays" or not to.

My initial workaround to set external monitor as default was to choose it as primary, uncheck the laptop and then re-check the laptop.

But now, after unchecking the laptop to make a screenshot of external monitor only, it won't go back and it has become even more "broken" with laptop display settings no longer adjustable and even Firefox bookmarks have an issue. Go figure!

guessing it's hardware compatibility

Don't know.
Never happened before (tried dozens of distros).
In fact, after installing latest Manjaro over Chalet, i found arandr by chance and installed it in hopes of better dual monitor setup.

Did presently install latest ChaletOS 16.04.02 with arandr to manage monitors:
https://miguelmenendez.pro/en/articles/use-multiple-monitors-screens-xfce-extended-display-desktop-mirror.html

Will see how that goes.
So far so good (even without using arandr).

Don't know why ChaletOS does not have "duplicate" or "extend" monitor settings.

Curious to know why compiz clock appears on laptop monitor instead of external which is set to default... not a big issue since i don't mind it at all.

ChaletOS 16.04 original had those options. Didnt realize .1 did not. I have not used .1 yet other than in virtualbox but I will in the future.

Btw, after second look, arandr doesn't have much more options (at least not the one i was looking for "mirror or extend") but it is also a way to see if managing the two monitors for there would be less risky than OS default which gave me a hassle last time.

you could try the new 16.04.02. All I know is that Chalet OS 16.04 original release had those options.

I just wanted to check I have the same system settings, as I have the option to "mirror display" in settings->Display

Do you not have these options?

Good point Dal_trying!

Don't know why i didn't mention it before.
"Mirror display" is there, just can't access it.
It is lighter shade and i just can't get to check or uncheck it.

It sounds like a configuration problem or maybe a poorly supported video card, I get just the basic display like the one below when there are no external monitors connected.


Just a thought, but can you select the different monitors from the display app?

Previous screenshot is same for me (except for "mirror" lighter shade).
And yes, can select different monitors.
Don't do "mirroring" so present situation is just fine.
Have clicked a few times at changing default monitor or to simply turn on off/on again. So far, so good!

It could be that there aren't any compatible display modes for both monitors which is why it can't use mirror function but that's just a guess really.
Looking at your original post though I suspect that what you would need to do is simply select/deselect "Use This Display" to switch each one on or off.

Dai_trying wrote:...
Looking at your original post though I suspect that what you would need to do is simply select/deselect "Use This Display" to switch each one on or off.

16.04.2 is doing good so far!

very good