Re: [tlug] Docked Laptop Dilemma

[Christian Horn <chorn@example.com>]

On Sat, Oct 03, 2009 at 11:44:55AM -0600, David J Iannucci wrote:
> 
> What I mean by this is: I have a very nice Thinkpad at work which I keep
> docked most of the time, and which I use in a dual monitor setup (its
> LCD + an external monitor).  It runs Gentoo (though I suppose that's
> incidental).  Because it's my work machine, I'd like to occasionally
> undock it and take it to meetings, then bring it back, redock it, and
> continue working as I was.

No clear solution to your problem but maybe it helps bringing the
parts together: 

On my thinkpad i use a small script that make use of xrandr
to detect the current situation, so 
- if an external monitor is connected (then that one is used at 
its native resolution and the internal display is switched off)
- otherwise only the internal display is used.

The snippet is available on
http://fluxcoil.net/doku.php/hardwarerelated/thinkpad_x200?s[]=modesetting#x_configuration
- but my usage is that the detection is done on each start of a
users Xsession.

For your problem with that in back one could run terminalsessions
with screen on the local box and X-applications could be run on a
vncserver hosted on the thinkpad.  Those would survive the user
when his Xsession is restarted, but not a linux-reboot.

Probably there is something not requiring these workarounds but
keeping the Xsession alive.


Christian