laptop / desktop screen switching problems

[benit]

I have a notebook with 1600x900 resolution and a desktop monitor with 1920x1080 pixel resolution. I would like to switch off the notebook screen, plug a remote mouse and a keyboard to the notebook and put it under my desk, like a normal PC.

When I plug in my desktop screen and adjust resolution and reboot, the keyboard does not work any more (neither via USB external keyboard nor from the desktop keyboard).

Do you have any clue what is going on?

[leszek]

If you replug in the usb keyboard it works again?
Strange. Could it be some power saving feature for usb?

[benit]

No, replugging does not help, only rebooting without second screen. But I also had a case when the keyboard worked again, but only the backspace key did not work... Need to do some more tests, but in general it is annoying that a second screen blocks the keyboard. This means that I cannot use a second screen!? That is not acceptable at all...

[leszek]

That is truely an annoying bug if that is really the case. Worth reporting upstream.

[benit]

What does it mean to report it upstream? Where to report? I am in a KDE mailing list. Would this be helpful?

[leszek]

Upstream means in this case the kde project. So at bugs.kde.org

[benit]

Ok, would be nice, if somebody here could try this, too. My graphics card is NVidia Optimus Geforce GT 645M

[benit]

I found out that with second screen attached, but without external USB (cable bound) keyboard everything works as desired. I will try to find out, if this is a problem of this specific keyboard

edit: I cannot reproduce this working scenario any more, so I apologize for this misinformation. Maybe it was a fata monitoriana...

[benit]

I think I have misreported some things here and I get more and more confused.

I made quite a number of tests without external USB keyboard and even without that I do not get my dual screen setup working.

When I set up my second screen properly so that the laptop screen is off and the second external monitor is my primary display and then do a reboot, the second screen really is a second screen without task bar or widgets, but also the notebook screen is this way. So I do not see my true first desktop working area as I would if I had just booted the notebook.

Only with Function + F8 hardware key combination I can bring back my primary desktop image on the notebook, but then I have to reconfigure the second screen etc.

This is very disturbing.

Can somebody please check that out?

Thanks a lot!

[benit]

Over time I have gained more insight in the true core of my problem and thus I want to report it again:

My setup is now fully dual, so that finally I could understand the problem.

I have my external HDMI monitor set as my first screen and the notebook as my second screen. After rebooting I find this order reversed. To get back what I want I open system settings - displays and there I see that the HDMI is the first monitor, but this is not true. So I have to switch the primary display to laptop-screen, accept this and then I have to switch the primary display to external HDMI and accept this. The moment I accept the latter I get the two screens switched.

   

So if you imagine to find out this problem with only one screen active you can imagine why I was fooled so much for quite a while.