Setting up primary monitor on FHD modified Lenovo x230 on elementary OS Hera

Question

I have FHD modified Lenovo x230. (Details about the mod here https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=122640) Mod creates an actual FHD display connected to DP-3 but also a fantom, "dummy display" LVDS-1 used for brightness control, normally LVDS-1 is connected to laptop screen but not anymore in my case. I had this mod working for a few years now and I have been using it with a previous Elementary OS Loki version without much problems however small modification to it's config files was necessary to allow X11 to use the correct display. As far as I remember this have been done similar to the way described here: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=122640&p=805876&hilit=X11#p805876

I'm afraid I'm not 100% sure if this was the exact method I've used to achieve this but it's kind of rings the bell for me.

When i decided to install a new version of elementary OS I've completely forgot that this have to be completed to have a fully working system. Unfortunately I went ahead and done it :)
I do have a working OS but just a blank desktop without an easy way to interact with the system as I cannot see plank etc.
I cannot access terminal with Super+T for some reason but I was able to open programs using ALT+F2 and typing program name (this doesn't work for terminal though), this way they do open on the screen I can see. I was trying to diagnose the problem by accessing one of terminal windows using CTRL+ALT+F1 but even when I try to run xrandr it comes back with "Can't open display" so I'm not sure what is going on. I was trying to check for the files mentioned in the post from thinkpads forum but there is no /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d catalog or ~/.config/monitors.xml and /var/lib/lightdm/.config/monitors.xml files in Hera. I'm not sure if the current version of Elementary OS is actually still using X11 or maybe it is all Wayland now? Can anyone please advise me which files would have to be modified to have all the elements mirrored between LVDS-1 and DP-3 as I think this will be the easiest way to have it working again? Which files both lightdm and panthon are using for monitor settings now?

I would really appreciate any help with this.

Answer 1

Yes, elementary OS still uses X. I do not have the device you do, but I believe a good start would be to create the files you need, as instructed in the links you provided.

I do have a ~/.config/monitors.xml, so you can safely create it (nano ~/.config/monitors.xml), with the following contents:

<monitors version="1">
  <configuration>
    <clone>yes</clone>
    <output name="DP3">
      <vendor>SHP</vendor>
      <product>0x141f</product>
      <serial>0x00000000</serial>
      <width>1920</width>
      <height>1080</height>
      <rate>59.933879852294922</rate>
      <x>0</x>
      <y>0</y>
      <rotation>normal</rotation>
      <reflect_x>no</reflect_x>
      <reflect_y>no</reflect_y>
      <primary>no</primary>
      <presentation>no</presentation>
      <underscanning>no</underscanning>
    </output>
    <output name="LVDS1">
      <vendor>ZLX</vendor>
      <product>Dummy display</product>
      <serial>D2U040082    </serial>
      <width>1920</width>
      <height>1080</height>
      <rate>60.034385681152344</rate>
      <x>0</x>
      <y>0</y>
      <rotation>normal</rotation>
      <reflect_x>no</reflect_x>
      <reflect_y>no</reflect_y>
      <primary>yes</primary>
      <presentation>no</presentation>
      <underscanning>no</underscanning>
    </output>
  </configuration>
</monitors>

In nano, press Ctrl + O to save, followed by Ctrl + X to close it.

Running a locate xorg.conf will reveal this:

/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-amdgpu.conf
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-nvidia.conf
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-quirks.conf
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-radeon.conf
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/70-wacom.conf
/usr/share/doc/xserver-xorg-video-intel-hwe-18.04/xorg.conf
/usr/share/man/man5/xorg.conf.5.gz
/usr/share/man/man5/xorg.conf.d.5.gz

So, I suggest placing the 20-fhdmod.conf file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d as well (sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-fhdmod.conf), containing:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "IntelCard"
    BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
    Driver  "intel"
    Option  "DRI" "3"

    Option  "ZaphodHeads" "DP-3"
    Option  "Virtualheads"  "0"

    #Option "kmsdev" "/dev/dri/card0"                    
EndSection

EDIT: Congrats on the modded X230 by the way, I plan to grab one for myself soon and mod it as well!

Answer 2

OK, for the past few days I've been trying different approaches to have this issue sorted out using various config changes, unfortunately none of the modifications I have done was actually working the way I wanted. At the end what I've decided to do it to use the most complicated way to have my FHD mod working by getting rid of Lenovo Bios and flashing Coreboot. I've done this in the past but I came back to Lenovo bios afterwards because of power management (the lack of) in Coreboot. Looks like things have changed since that time as it now have ACPI compatibility so it behaves a bit better in power management department. I've flashed first successful Coreboot compile today and so far it looks and works fine, the bast part is that OS can see only one display now :)