Different monitor configurations if laptop is docked vs undocked

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Hi all, I’m new to MATE, been running Ubuntu for quite some time, and was quite pleased when I recently installed Ubuntu 18.04 (non-MATE), and everything involved in my laptop hardware “just worked”: docking the laptop allowed me to use my external monitor as the sole primary display, while undocking allowed me to use the laptop display. Switched to MATE (complete reinstall), and I’m not finding things to be so easy. Basically, each time I dock the laptop, I have to manually set the primary monitor to be the external one, and shut off the laptop display. I also had a HECK of a time getting the display brightness to work; finally ended up installing brightnessctl, as the acpi stuff just wasn’t working at all.

Note that this is a Lenovo W520, so it has the weird dual-graphics with Intel and Nvidia side by side. I know things aren’t great with Nvidia right now, but I wasn’t sure that “remembering” docked display configurations would be part of that heartache. Anyone have thoughts?

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I know what you mean about the brightness control. For me it stops working with the nvidia drivers. Not sure yet what the problem is.

As for the docking configuration, try installing autorandr and saving the configurations you use. It then remembers based on the monitors and applies your saved config. I use that to not go crazy :wink:

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Thanks! I’m ok with brightnessctl right now, and autorandr seems to be working! I wonder if default Ubuntu installs autorandr automatically?