Hi guys!
I have a strange issue…
I have two monitors attached to my PC and naturally I want to use the higher resolution one as my primary and the other as a secondary monitor.
Now, every time i shutdown or reboot my configuration disappears, leaving me with my small monitor as primary and the other as secondary (of course).
The funny thing is that, just after boot my xrandr output is
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 3360 x 1080, maximum 32767 x 32767
DP1 connected 1440x900+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 410mm x 260mm
1440x900 59.89*+ 74.98
1280x1024 75.02 60.02
1280x960 60.00
1280x800 74.93 59.81
1152x864 75.00
1024x768 75.03 70.07 60.00
832x624 74.55
800x600 72.19 75.00 60.32 56.25
640x480 75.00 72.81 66.67 59.94
720x400 70.08
HDMI1 connected primary 1920x1080+1440+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 530mm x 300mm
1920x1080 60.00 + 74.97* 50.00 59.94
1920x1080i 60.00 50.00 59.94
1680x1050 59.88
1280x1024 75.02 60.02
1440x900 59.90
1280x960 60.00
1280x720 60.00 50.00 59.94
1024x768 75.03 70.07 60.00
832x624 74.55
800x600 72.19 75.00 60.32 56.25
720x576 50.00
720x480 60.00 59.94
640x480 75.00 72.81 66.67 60.00 59.94
720x400 70.08
HDMI2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
VIRTUAL1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
So plasma recognize which is my primary monitor correctly.
That’s confirmed by giving a look to system settings in display section, where right after boot I see:
Even though my actual primary monitor is still the small one.
Now, I read that it’s a bug in plasma and it’s been here with us for at least 10 years, so there are a lot of solution on the web, however none of them appllies to my case: for example, I wrote a simple bash script to launch at start:
It’s a BIOS/UEFI Firmware thing: Whichever monitor shows your boot-up sequence before Linux starts is indeed your primary monitor and you need to change that in your firmware.
If the xrandr command all by itself works, but your script doesn’t:
try modifying the shebang of your script to #!/bin/bash and ensure the execution bit is set.
So, I checked the mobo manual and BIOS settings and turns out I can’t set a primary monitor via firmware…
Strangely enough the ASUS logo shows up on both screens when I boot, so I don’t know which one is considered primary at that stage.
The only thing I tried that could help is to disconnect one of the two monitor, boot, then shutdown and connect it again to see if that could reset my settings but still nothing.
Regarding the script, no luck with that either… It works if I manually change display settings and then execute the script to test it out, but at boot it doesn’t really make a difference…
Thanks for the ideas though!
Al least we ruled a couple of things out
According to this link .xinitrc in your home directory will be read and executed, otherwise the default /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc is used. So you should be able to create this file and have the shell script started.
What I meant to say is that I messed up my monitor settings on purpose and than executed the script to see if it worked and it does.
I did this to be sure I typed it out correctly and tested with the original shebang and the one you suggested.
The problem is that, after shutdown/reboot, my primary monitor is still the wrong one even if xrandr output and system settings say otherwise…
Don’t worry man, maybe you’re right
It just doesn’t make sense, that’s what really bothers me, but I wasted too much time over this…
Let’s hope for a fix in the future, thank you!
I’ve marked this answer as the solution to your question as it is by far the best answer you’ll get.
However, if you disagree with my choice, please feel free to take any other answer as the solution to your question or even remove the solution altogether: You are in control! (If you disagree with my choice, just send me a personal message and explain why I shouldn’t have done this or or if you agree)
P.S. In the future, please don’t forget to come back and click the 3 dots below the answer to mark a solution like this below the answer that helped you most:
so that the next person that has the exact same problem you just had will benefit from your post as well as your question will now be in the “solved” status.
I installed XFCE, it’s been a long time coming anyway…
Now everything works as it should!
So yeah… I love KDE from the bottom of my hearth but it was driving me nuts lately
I’ve never had any problem on my laptop either and it’s still rockyng KDE
It’s just that is a pain on my desktop, especially managing a dual monitor setup.
But hey, XFCE looks better than I remembered and the important thing to me is that my PCs are powered by Manjaro
or 
if you agree)
