Cannot login while using external monitor

[Andreas Rasmussen]

I'm runnin 4.0 on a Lenovo X230. Everything runs smoothly besides the
login proces.

When I boot up and enter the disk encryption password, everything works
as it should. However: If an external monitor (be it displayport or vga)
is connected, the loginscreen never appears.

If I disconnect the monitor, the loginscreen appears directly. I can
then login, reconnect the monitor, and go about with my day.

When I'm logged in, I only use the external monitor and disable the
laptop-monitor. I'm guessing that this might be what is preventing the
login screen from displaying, but how do I fix it?

Andreas

[Ivan Mitev]

On 06/07/2018 03:33 PM, Andreas Rasmussen wrote:
> I'm runnin 4.0 on a Lenovo X230. Everything runs smoothly besides the
> login proces.
>
> When I boot up and enter the disk encryption password, everything works
> as it should. However: If an external monitor (be it displayport or vga)
> is connected, the loginscreen never appears.

That's strange, it should at least appear on one of the monitors. The
problem people usually have is that the login screen appears on the
laptop's display even when it's docked and the lid closed, so you have
to open the laptop's monitor, login and then close it back. IIUC you
don't even see it on the laptop's monitor

Try this: after you boot, at the time where you're supposed to see the
login screen, go to a console (CTRL-ALT-F2 for instance), login and look
at xrandr's output:

export XAUTHORITY=/var/run/lightdm/root/:0
export DISPLAY
xrandr

you should see something like

LVDS-1 connected primary ...
...
DP-1 connected ...

('LVDS-1' and 'DP-1' will probably differ on your X230).

try to turn off the laptop's display with

xrandr --output LVDS-1 --off

on my laptop I also have to turn off the external and turn it back on
(no idea why, never had the time to debug).

xrandr --output DP-1 --off ; sleep 1 ; xrandr --output DP-1 --auto


if you see the loginscreen on the external monitor after those steps,
you'll have to automate this - either by tweaking xorg's conf file, or
by using lightdm's script (see greeter-setup-script=...)

[cang...@gmail.com]

There are minor bugs in the Qubes, considering the priority is the safety. My case: First step, big screen is primary and is set to be above laptop screen (in contrary to the left or right). This way I can use the laptop keyboard by fully wide opening the screen-I can even use the laptop screen. Second step, put the laptop on sleep. Unplug the big screen. Wake up the laptop, voila, the screen is all black. You can type your password right away and then hit enter, or you can plug back the big screen if you want to see the login screen, but as I said, no need, just type in and hit the enter while the screen is black, then you will see the desktop on your laptop screen.

[Ivan Mitev]

On 06/07/2018 05:54 PM, cang...@gmail.com wrote:
> There are minor bugs in the Qubes, considering the priority is the safety. My case: First step, big screen is primary and is set to be above laptop screen (in contrary to the left or right). This way I can use the laptop keyboard by fully wide opening the screen-I can even use the laptop screen. Second step, put the laptop on sleep. Unplug the big screen. Wake up the laptop, voila, the screen is all black. You can type your password right away and then hit enter, or you can plug back the big screen if you want to see the login screen, but as I said, no need, just type in and hit the enter while the screen is black, then you will see the desktop on your laptop screen.

I have the same problem but it's likely a problem with fedora and/or the
linux kernel, not something specific to Qubes.

I've solved this by adding suspend/resume hooks that turn off the
external monitor before suspend, and turn it back on at resume.

[cang...@gmail.com]

Hmm, I saw some scripts on the internet about what you proposed. I’m not computer or software engineer, but using Qubes for my work. If you have time, I will appreciate further details on your proposal. Thank you.

[Chris Laprise]

On 06/07/2018 10:54 AM, cang...@gmail.com wrote:
> There are minor bugs in the Qubes, considering the priority is the safety. My case: First step, big screen is primary and is set to be above laptop screen (in contrary to the left or right). This way I can use the laptop keyboard by fully wide opening the screen-I can even use the laptop screen. Second step, put the laptop on sleep. Unplug the big screen. Wake up the laptop, voila, the screen is all black. You can type your password right away and then hit enter, or you can plug back the big screen if you want to see the login screen, but as I said, no need, just type in and hit the enter while the screen is black, then you will see the desktop on your laptop screen.
>

The blank login screen sounds like this issue I'm having when the
internal display is disabled / not visible:

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/3589

I recently switched to KDE and installed anti-evil-maid and I think
that, together, they resulted in the disk unlock and desktop login
screens being properly displayed on the external monitor.

--

Chris Laprise, tas...@posteo.net
https://github.com/tasket
https://twitter.com/ttaskett
PGP: BEE2 20C5 356E 764A 73EB 4AB3 1DC4 D106 F07F 1886

[awokd]

On Thu, June 7, 2018 9:13 pm, Chris Laprise wrote:
> On 06/07/2018 10:54 AM, cang...@gmail.com wrote:
>> There are minor bugs in the Qubes, considering the priority is the
>> safety. My case: First step, big screen is primary and is set to be
>> above laptop screen (in contrary to the left or right). This way I can
>> use the laptop keyboard by fully wide opening the screen-I can even use
>> the laptop screen. Second step, put the laptop on sleep. Unplug the big
>> screen. Wake up the laptop, voila, the screen is all black. You can type
>> your password right away and then hit enter, or you can plug back the
>> big screen if you want to see the login screen, but as I said, no need,
>> just type in and hit the enter while the screen is black, then you will
>> see the desktop on your laptop screen.
>>
>
> The blank login screen sounds like this issue I'm having when the
> internal display is disabled / not visible:
>
> https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/3589
>
> I recently switched to KDE and installed anti-evil-maid and I think
> that, together, they resulted in the disk unlock and desktop login
> screens being properly displayed on the external monitor.

I found that moving the mouse pointer to the screen I wanted (in XFCE)
resulted in it showing the login prompt there.

[awokd]

On Mon, June 11, 2018 6:46 am, Andreas Rasmussen wrote:

>
> On 06/10/18 16:34, awokd wrote:
>>
>> I found that moving the mouse pointer to the screen I wanted (in XFCE)
>> resulted in it showing the login prompt there.>
>

> The solution posted by awokd actually worked. Thank you very much!

It is kind of weird UI and I don't remember having to do it under R3.2 but
glad it worked for you too!

[Ivan Mitev]

On 06/07/2018 09:37 PM, cang...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hmm, I saw some scripts on the internet about what you proposed. I’m not computer or software engineer, but using Qubes for my work. If you have time, I will appreciate further details on your proposal. Thank you.

Sure; in dom0, put the following script in
/usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep, make sure it's executable (chmod a+x ...)
and adapt the xrandr commands to your setup.

see `man systemd-suspend.service` for more info on how that mechanism works.



#!/bin/sh

export XAUTHORITY=/var/run/lightdm/root/:0
export DISPLAY=:0

case "$1" in

pre)
case "$2" in
suspend|hibernate|hybrid-sleep)
# your xrandr commands here, eg.
xrandr --output DP1 --off
xrandr --output eDP1 --auto
;;
esac
;;

post)
# your xrandr commands here, eg.
xrandr --output DP1 --auto
xrandr --output eDP1 --off
;;
esac

exit 0